MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

THE  CONSUMER'S  PART 
J  W.  SULLIVAN 


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MARKETS   FOR  THE  PEOPLE 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO 
DALLAS  •   ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO..  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THB  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


MARKETS 
FOR   THE   PEOPLE 

THE   CONSUMER'S  PART 


BY 

J.  W.  SULLIVAN 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1913 
Bv  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  dectrotypcd.    Published  October,  1913 


FERRIS    PRINTING    COMPANY 
NEW  YORK,   N.   Y..   U.   8.  A, 


THIS   WORK    I   DEDICATE,    WITH   DEEP   RESPECT, 
TO 

MISS   HELEN  WESTON 


313260 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I — IN  RESPONSE  TO  QUERIES,  NATURAL  TO  THE 

READER       I 

II — "ECONOMY  BEGINS  AT  HOME" 14 

III — FROM   PRODUCER  TO  CONSUMER — THE  MOST 

COSTLY    OBSTRUCTION 34 

IV — A  PUBLIC  OUTLET — CLOSED  BY  THE  AUTHOR- 
ITIES       53 

V — A  RIGHTFUL  USE  OF  COMMON   PROPERTY — 

BLOCKED  BY  STATUTE 76 

VI — PUBLIC  MARKETS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES — 

HURTFUL   TO   "BUSINESS" ;      94 

VII — CUTS  MADE  AND  TO  BE  MADE  IN  THE  HIGH 

COST  OF  MIDDLEMEN 114 

VIII — Is  CO-OPERATION  COMING?  HINDRANCES  .     .     131 
IX— THE  RETAIL  MARKETS  OF  PARIS— ONLY  THE 

OUT-DOOR   SUCCESSFUL 158 

X— THE  "CENTRAL  HALLS"  OF  PARIS— COMPETI- 
TORS  ILLEGAL *74 

XI — THE  MORIBUND  BERLIN  MARKET  SYSTEM — 

ITS  LESSON  FOR  NEW  YORK i92 

XII — RETAIL  MARKETING  IN  LONDON — THE  OLD- 
EST-PLAN AND  THE  BEST  ......    209 

XIII— LONDON'S  MIXED  WHOLESALE  SYSTEM— No 

MODEL  FOR  NEW  YORK  .    .    .    .    *    ..-•    229 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIV— Do  MUNICIPAL  MARKETS  PAY? 247 

XV — NEW    YORK    MARKET    PROBLEMS — OFFICIAL 

PROMISE  vs.   PERFORMANCE 269 

XVI — PRICES;    SUPPLY;    DISTRIBUTION     ....  287 
XVII — A    METROPOLITAN    MARKET    SYSTEM,    CUT- 
PRICE  AND  COSTLESS 301 


MARKETS   FOR  THE  PEOPLE 


MARKETS  FOR    THE    PEOPLE 

I.    IN  RESPONSE  TO  QUERIES,  NATURAL 
TO  THE  READER. 

SEVEN  years  ago,  on  the  formation  of  the  Com- 
mission on  Public  Utilities  of  the  National  Civic 
Federation,  I  suggested,  as  one  of  its  Committee  of 
Five  on  Plan  and  Scope,  that  its  investigations  in- 
clude public  markets.  A  possible  reduction  in  the 
cost  of  food,  evidently,  was  of  pressing  interest  to 
the  masses,  even  more  than  lower  street-car  fares 
or  reduced  rates  for  gas,  water,  or  electric  light. 
But  the  Commission  decided  not  to  extend  its  in- 
quiry beyond  the  reach  of  these  four  items  of  gen- 
eral outlay.  However,  while  traveling,  for  a  year 
or  more,  in  America  and  Great  Britain,  as  labor  in- 
vestigator for  the  Commission,  I  gathered  such  data 
relative  to  markets  as  a  casual  observer  might,  visit- 
ing them  wherever  I  went.  Afterward,  for  more 
than  a  year,  in  going  about  much  on  the  Continent, 
I  continued  my  observations.  Again,  in  1909,  while 
on  tour  in  many  countries  in  Europe  with  President 


•  *  .     '  • 

•  •  .    .  • 

•'•;:•-. 

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**••**•  -  -,. 

''  THE    PEOPLE 


Samuel  Gompers,  American  Federation  of  Labor,  I 
took  the  opportunity  to  visit  public  markets,  collect 
official  reports  of  their  operations,  and  ascertain 
popular  views  regarding  them  from  representatives 
of  the  organized  wage-workers.  During  the  years 
following,  while  I  was  assistant  editor  with  Mr. 
Gompers,  the  rising  discussion  of  the  cost  of  living 
brought  to  the  editorial  offices  in  Washington,  be- 
sides numerous  letters,  literally  a  stream  of  printed 
matter  on  the  subject  —  clippings,  leaflets,  magazine 
articles,  pamphlets,  especially  prospectuses  for  co- 
operative and  other  distributive  organizations,  and 
various  public  documents,  including  reports  of  of- 
ficial commissions.  Mr.  Gompers  procuring  recent 
reports  and  other  reference  works  on  markets  from 
various  European  countries,  I  examined  this  mat- 
ter, so  far  as  my  reading  acquaintance  with  foreign 
languages  permitted.  My  interest  in  the  subject 
deepening  with  my  information,  I  went  in  April, 
1912,  to  Europe,  and  after  visiting,  among  others, 
the  principal  markets  in  Switzerland,  I  saw  reason 
to  center  my  inquiries  on  the  systems  of  Paris, 
London  and  Berlin.  These  are  the  only  cities  in 
the  class  with  New  York,  presenting  the  market 
problem  on  much  the  same  scale  and  with  some- 
what similarly  complicated  conditions  relative  to 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  3 

supply,  transportation,  wholesaling  and  retailing. 
Since  returning  from  Europe,  in  March,  I  have 
continued  my  inquiries  in  New  York.  In  the  four 
cities,  besides  consulting  reports  and  reference 
works  in  the  administrative  and  larger  public  li- 
braries, I  have  interviewed  numerous  persons — 
market,  police,  city  hall  and  other  officials,  market 
vendors,  shopkeepers  great  and  small,  sociologists 
of  various  tendencies,  and,  continually,  "the  man  in 
the  street."  Finally,  within  the  last  few  months, 
Mr.  Gompers  has  obtained  from  certain  American 
cities  official  replies,  more  or  less  in  detail,  to  a 
series  of  questions  relative  to  their  respective  mar- 
ket systems.  To  this  matter  I  have  had  access. 

Though  much  of  my  work  on  this  question  has 
been  done  while  I  was  engaged  with  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  and  I  could  not  have  obtained 
my  information  readily  without  the  assistance  of 
Mr.  Gompers,  in  no  wise  is  he  or  the  organization 
responsible  for  my  views  or  my  treatment  of  the 
facts. 

I  make  this  statement  in  order  to  anticipate  the 
necessity  of  replying  hereafter  to  a  natural,  and 
reasonable,  query  on  the  part  of  readers  as  to  whom 
I  represent  and  as  to  how  I  have  been  able  to  ac- 
quire a  knowledge  of  the  subject  which,  I  recog- 


4  MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

nize,  has  imparted  to  my  assertions  and  views  a 
vein  of  authority  and  conviction. 

The  direct  result  of  my  investigations  has  been, 
I  believe,  to  qualify  me  to  point  out,  in  the  light  of 
the  experience  of  other  great  cities,  the  shortest 
and  cheapest  possible  lines  from  the  producer,  near 
and  far,  to  the  very  door  of  the  consumer  in  our 
metropolis  of  New  York.  Of  first  importance  in 
my  recommendations  is  the  economic  principle  by 
which  the  choked-up  local  outlets  of  our  supplies 
may  be  kept  clear  and  open — namely,  the  largest 
practicable  freedom,  involving  the  widest  competi- 
tion, in  the  use  of  the  city's  streets  and  open 
spaces.  What  I  recommend  in  particular — the  plan 
for  which  I  plead — is  summarized  in  the  last  of 
my  chapters. 

Here,  in  outline,  are  my  salient  premises  and 
conclusions : 

1.  People  who  do  not  practice  the   reasonable 
economies  open  to  them  fail  to  make  the  proper 
start  in  reducing  their  own  cost  of  living.     There- 
fore, their  first  necessary  step  is  to  join  the  thrifty, 
a  true  class  of  social  reformers. 

2.  The  outlay  for  food  is  45  to  60  per  cent  of 
the  breadwinner's  earnings   in  the  typical   family 
among  the  masses.    Therefore,  the  most  widespread 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  5 

reductions   in  the   cost  of  living  can  come   from 
cheaper  prices  for  food. 

3.  The  New  York  grocery  or  provision  store  re- 
tailer makes  by  far  the  largest  percentage  in  the 
additions  to  price  put  on  by  the  successive  middle- 
men engaged  in  selling  and  transporting  from  coun- 
try producer  to  city  consumer.    For  New  York,  the 
costs  of  retailing  are  double  or  treble  the  costs  of 
wholesaling.     Therefore,  in  the  consumer's  task  of 
cutting  down  costs  his  first  attention  is  due  the 
retailer. 

4.  The    small    retailer,    moreover,    while    under 
heavy  but  unavoidable  expense,  is  usually  incapable 
of  extending  his  trade  beyond  a  regular  custom  re- 
stricted through  unalterable  circumstances;  hence 
he  cannot  considerably  promote  the  speedy  distri- 
bution of  an  occasional  or  seasonal  over-supply  in 
the  market;  he  cannot  transfer  to  the  general  pub- 
lic the  complete  benefits  that  ought  to  arise  from 
large  crops;  he  has  consequently  learned  to  get  his 
living   through    maintaining   a   high    conventional 
level  of  prices  or  through  other  practices  prejudi- 
cial to  consumers'  interests.    The  conditions  of  his 
occupation,  instead  of  furnishing  incentives  to  the 
most  efficient  public  service,  lead  to  his  own  non- 
service,  or  the  excessive  taxing  of  service,  or  the 


6  MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

prevention  of  service.  Therefore,  the  petty  store 
retailer's  part  in  the  general  commercial  machin- 
ery, being  economically  defective,  must  inevitably 
give  way  to  forms  yielding  better  results  for  the 
consumers. 

5.  A  twenty  per  cent  saving  to  the  consumer  of 
moderate  means,  and  in  cases  much  more,  on  stock 
of  equal  quality,  in  particular  on  fruits  and  vege- 
tables, through  pushcart  dealers  as  against  store 
retailers,  has  of  recent  years  been  repeatedly  re- 
ported by  investigators,  among  others  by  New  York 
State  and  City  Commissions.    Therefore,  the  legiti- 
mate trade  of  the  pushcart,  to  the  fullest  extent,  is 
a  reasonable  demand  on  the  part  of  consumers. 

6.  It  is  not  only  through  the  economies  of  their 
prices  that  pushcart  dealers  can  ordinarily  best  serve 
their  customers,  but  through  the  peculiar  conve- 
nience of  their  operations.   When  their  services  are 
needed  they  can  be  handy — are  so  in  the  great  cities 
in  which  they  have  freedom  of  the  streets — serving 
the  factory  and  other  workers  at  lunch  hour  and 
housekeepers  at  all  hours.    Therefore,  to  meet  vari- 
ous public  wants,  the  pushcart  trade  should  by  law 
be   freely  ambulant  and   freely  stationary,   within 
general  traffic  limits,  wherever  consumers  should 
wish  to  buy. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  7 

7.  The  practicability  and  value  of  open-air  mar- 
kets for  metropolitan  cities  have  been  convincingly 
demonstrated,  through  diverse  experimentation,  in 
London,    Paris    and    Greater    Berlin — in    London 
through     long-established     operation;     in     Paris, 
through   concurrent   operation   of   both   open   and 
housed  municipal  markets,  the  latter  ruined  in  the 
competition;  in  Greater  Berlin,  through  the  pro- 
gressive development  of  open-air  markets  in  the 
suburbs  while   they   were   suppressed   in  the   city 
proper  to  give  life  to  the  failing  housed  municipal 
retail  system.     New   York,  contrary  to  law,  and 
Newark,  legally,  have  today  sufficient  beginnings 
of  the  open-air  markets  to  indicate  that  neither 
climate  nor  the  habits  of  the  people  in  this  vast 
community  are  unfavorable  to  this  economical  an- 
nex of   the  kitchen.      Therefore,   any   district  of 
Greater  New  York,  in  suburb  or  centre,  could  be 
expected  to  supply  consumers  enough  to  encourage 
the  attendance  at  open-air  markets  throughout  the 
year  by  producers,  pushcarters,  and  retail  dealers. 

8.  Since  selling  in  the  open — by  pushcart  and 
market — regulates  all  forms  of  indoor  retailing,  it 
establishes  a  solid  primary  basis  for  the  conditions 
of  the   foodstuffs  trade,  with  consequently  stable 
and   unmanipulated    retail    prices.      Therefore,    it 


8  MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

should  take  precedence  of  all  other  projects   for 
reducing  the  cost  of  living. 

9.  The  big  up-to-date  provision  section  of  the 
department  store,   the  "private  market,"  and  the 
chain  store — each  today  invading  the  commercial 
territory  long  held  by  the  small  retailer — all  alike 
evince  possibilities   of  lowering  their  own  prices, 
and  in  general  catering  with  improved  efficiency  to 
the  wants  of  the  public,  especially  of  the  well-to-do, 
as  competition  should  develop  with  them  through 
forms  of  open-air  selling.     Therefore,  the  positive 
social  value  of  these  types  of  distributers,  highly  ef- 
fective as  they  are  without  official  outlay  or  admin- 
istration, must  be  duly  recognized  by  promoters  of 
markets  or  other  projects,  public  or  private,   in- 
volving expensive  plant  or  cumbrous  organization, 
for  the  sale  of  perishable  foodstuffs. 

10.  Any  proposal   for  distributive  co-operation 
based  on  the  impressive  progress  of  the  system  in 
Great  Britain  imposes  on  its  originators  the  obliga- 
tion of  making  a  sincere  and  thorough  study  of 
the  Rochdale  methods  and  principles,  ethical  and 
commercial,  and  of  the  obstacles,  peculiar  in  our 
national  character  and  conditions,  which  for  decades 
have  rendered  unsuccessful  innumerable  American 
imitations,  genuine  and  counterfeit,  of  British  co- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  9 

operative  methods.  Therefore,  serious  advocates  of 
true  co-operation  in  any  American  community  must 
content  themselves  to  await  the  development  of  co- 
operators,  in  spirit  and  education,  before  proceed- 
ing to  begin  a  co-operative  business. 

11.  Successive    investigations    of    New    York's 
market  problem  have  left  unaltered  a  situation  of 
many  years'  standing,  except  the  recent  concentra- 
tion of  pushcarts  in  a  few  neighborhoods  to  the 
general  detriment  of  the  poorer  classes.     Inquiry 
by  official  investigators  as  to  foreign  methods  has 
been  inadequate,  the  deficiencies  of  retail  services 
next  the  home  have  not  been  given  due  weight,  in 
the  search  for  ambitious  administrative  modes  of 
reform,  entailing  large  city  appropriations  and  well- 
salaried  political  offices,   the  possibilities  in   free, 
humble  every-day  methods   of   selling  have  been 
overlooked.    Recommendations  by  various  commis- 
sions have  been  contradictory  and  all  thus  far  im- 
practical,   or   at   least    fruitless    in   actual   market 
changes.  Therefore,  the  present  voluntary  inquiry 
and  independent  report  may  fill  a  want. 

12.  Housed  district  municipal  markets,  made  up 
of  rows  of  little  stalls  occupied  the  full  week  by 
petty  dealers,  have  during  the  last  twenty-five  years 
been  failing  in  all  the  four  chief  cities  of  our  civili- 


io    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

zation;  the  system  is  unfitted  to  modern  life  and 
household  conditions  in  large  communities;  pro- 
viders for  the  home  in  many  cases  prefer,  one  class 
open-air  selling  and  another  the  more  attractive  pri- 
vate market.  Therefore,  proposals  to  rehabilitate 
housed  public  retail  markets  involve  the  difficult 
obligation  of  demonstrating  ways  and  means  to  ob- 
viate their  present  proven  shortcomings. 

13.  The  problem  of  establishing  a  public  market 
system,  wholesale  and  retail,  in  Greater  New  York, 
widely  differs  from  the  simple  question  of  setting 
up  one  or  several  comparatively  small  markets  in  a 
minor  city.     In  the  greater  metropolis,  important 
distinctive  factors  are  arrivals  of  produce  by  car 
or  ship  load,  local  hauling  of  large  quantities  long 
distances,  the  defective  system  of  retailing,  difficulty 
in  selecting  market  sites,  cost  of  land  and  buildings, 
the  faults  of  administration,  changes  in  the  business 
or  residential  character  of  localities,  and  especially 
the   relative    configuration    of   the   five   boroughs. 
Therefore,  while  the  investigator  may  strongly  sup- 
port the  combined  covered  and  open-air  market  of 
the  Pennsylvania  type  for  our  lesser  American  cit- 
ies, the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  case  compel 
him  to  question  the  same  method  for  New  York. 

14.  Transition,  in  several  forms,  is  the  dominat- 


MARKETS    FOR  THE    PEOPLE  n 

ing  factor  in  the  market  situation  of  today  in  this 
metropolis  and  its  vicinity.  Subway  and  tunnel  are 
to  bring  about  the  greatest  changes  in  history  in 
local  passenger  transit;  accompanying  this  may  be 
an  epochal  change  in  distribution  of  produce  by 
freight;  commercial  transformation  may  follow  in 
many  districts,  especially  along  the  rivers  and  in 
the  suburbs;  wholesale  markets  advantageous  at 
present  to  retailers  might  prove  inconvenient  to 
open-air  marketmen;  the  transportation  companies, 
with  improved  market  yards  and  piers,  might  take 
trade  away  from  public  wholesale  markets.  There- 
fore, great  public  market  ventures  today  would  be 
uncertain  city  investments. 

15.  The  essential  effects  of  a  modern  wholesale 
market  lie  chiefly  in  ascertaining  and  publishing  the 
current  prices  consequent  on  an  uninterrupted  sup- 
ply coupled  with  a  thoroughly  effective  demand.  To 
indicate  sufficiently  the  general  supply  and  quali- 
ties of  certain  classes  of  produce  the  spot  supply 
need  be  much  less;  the  day's  display,  though  per- 
haps far  less  than  the  general  supply,  brings  pro- 
ducers or  their  representatives  to  meet  in  market 
places  all  classes  of  buyers;  selling  from  it  at  auc- 
tion forms  an  undeniable  base  for  price  indications 
in  general,  insures  an  outlet  for  consignments  to 


12    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

the  market  authorities,  and  is  a  means  of  further 
sales  by  sample  for  direct  delivery  to  buyers.  At 
present,  these  functions  are  not  performed  with  the 
least  possible  friction  and  cost  at  either  the  New 
York  public  wholesale  markets  or  the  transporta- 
tion companies'  yards  and  piers.  But  to  assume 
that  New  York's  scattered  business  of  wholesale 
marketing  can  be  attracted  to,  or  forced  by  legisla- 
tion into,  public  markets  is  to  accept  an  unproven 
theory.  Besides,  other  forms  of  friction  and  cost 
in  such  markets  are  to  be  foreseen.  The  tendency 
in  the  metropolitan  cities  abroad  is  dissemination, 
and  not  concentration  of  sales  of  produce  in  bulk 
in  the  official  wholesale  markets.  Meat  selling, 
forming  the  most  important  part  of  the  foreign 
metropolitan  municipal  market  receipts,  is  centred 
in  the  abattoirs  and  wholesale  markets  in  conse- 
quence of  taxing,  quarantine,  inspection  and  slaugh- 
tering methods  which  render  the  general  conditions 
of  the  meat  trade  entirely  different  from  those  of 
New  York,  where  the  packing-house  supply  is  most- 
ly apart  from  the  public  market  supply.  There- 
fore, concentration  of  wholesaling  in  New  York 
through  establishing  great  public  wholesale  markets 
is  not  probable,  but,  in  connection  with  the  markets 
that  already  exist,  there  is  promise  of  considerable 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  13 

improvement  through  the  adoption  of  auctioning, 
the  regulation  of  market-house  commission  men, 
and  the  encouragement  of  shipments  from  pro- 
ducers to  the  markets. 

1 6.  The  point  of  view  yielding  to  the  general 
reader  the  strongest  light  on  the  subject  of  the  cost 
of  living  is  that  of  the  consumer;  the  individual 
upon  whom  falls  the  burden  of  private  and  public 
duty  in  the  question  is  the  consumer;  the  citizen 
whose  rights  are  most  at  stake  is  the  consumer. 
Therefore,  the  consumer's  part  in  reform  should  be 
predominating. 

17.  New  York  can  have  at  once  a  public  metro- 
politan   market    system,    employing    the    cheapest 
methods  of  retailing,  without  spending  a  dollar  for 
plant.     The  system  is  the  one  which  has  surpassed 
on  trial  all  other  public  forms  of  marketing  in  the 
great  cities  of  Europe.     The  plan  herewith  recom- 
mended is  simple,  direct,  practical,  costless.    There- 
fore, consumers  are  urged  to  demand :    "The  streets 
for  the  people." 


II.     "ECONOMY  BEGINS  AT  HOME." 

IT  is  the  needs  of  the  consumer  which  initiate 
the  production  of  food.  Only  on  the  spur  of  hun- 
ger in  his  home  does  the  producer  in  a  primitive 
state  raise  his  crops.  Likewise,  in  civilized  condi- 
tions, upon  the  number  of  consumers  to  be  served 
and  their  effective  capacity  for  consumption  depend 
the  quantity  and  variety  of  foodstuffs  to  be  pro- 
duced for  the  market.  In  other  words,  the  pro- 
ducer is  the  agent  of  the  consumer.  Let  us  then 
conduct  our  inquiry  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
consumer,  that  he  may  learn  his  part  in  keeping 
the  cost  of  his  living  down  to  the  normal  point. 
What  should  be  the  normal  cost  of  producing  a 
commodity  may  be  a  matter  of  debate,  but  it  is  not 
difficult  to  decide  what  should  be  its  additional 
legitimate  cost  after  it  has  left  the  possession  of 
the  producer.  Service  for  transportation  and  sell- 
ing by  the  most  effective  methods  should  be  paid 
for,  and  nothing  else. 

The  consumer's  influence  on  production  is  direct- 
ly affected  by  his  methods  of  household  manage- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  15 

ment,  his  commercial  relations  with  the  purveyors 
of  food,  and  his  civic  relations  with  the  public 
authority.  His  duty  to  himself  is  thrift.  His  pub- 
lic duty  involves  helping  to  establish  and  maintain 
freedom  and  fairness  in  the  methods  of  marketing; 
he  must  allow  neither  purveyor  nor  public  author- 
ity to  erect  artificial  barriers  between  him  and  the 
producers. 

First,  then,  household  management — a  phase  of 
thrift.  To  what  class  of  consumers  is  it  best  worth 
while  to  give  consideration?  A  pertinent  initial 
query,  since  we  aim  at  helpful  action.  The  reply  is 
to  be  had  in  a  few  lines  of  social  analysis. 

Below  Sixty-second  street  in  New  York  is  a  popu- 
lation of  a  million  and  three  hundred  thousand.  Of 
this  number  a  certain  percentage,  living  in  hotels 
or  boarding  and  lodging  houses,  has  little  or  no  op- 
portunity to  practice  household  economies  or  direct- 
ly influence  foodstuff  prices.  Another  percentage 
is  well-to-do  families  who  usually  order  kitchen 
supplies  by  telephone  or  whose  buyers  are  their 
cooks  or  butlers,  price  in  either  case  not  being  a 
primary  care.  A  third  percentage,  a  small  one,  is 
the  unfortunate  families  more  or  less  dependent 
on  public  or  friendly  support.  These  three  percent- 
ages we  may  roughly  sum  up  as  perhaps  three  hun- 


16    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

dred  thousand.  If  they  amount  to  more,  a  strip  of 
city  blocks  northward  near  the  East  River  might  be 
added,  to  give  us  as  remaining  a  sure  million  of 
Manhattan's  inhabitants,  within  the  boundaries  in- 
dicated, which  include  an  area  equal  to  about  seven 
square  miles  lying  north  of  the  Battery,  who  today 
must  perforce  wrestle  in  earnest  with  the  question 
of  the  high  cost  of  living.  The  marketing  of  that 
million  it  will  do  to  keep  in  mind  as  our  objective. 
Any  proposed  methods  of  economical  purchasing 
applicable  to  this  mass  of  consumers  would  with 
reasonable  modifications  apply  also  to  people  of  the 
same  class  elsewhere  in  New  York,  as  well  as  in 
other  large  cities. 

In  Manhattan,  the  earnings  of  non-dependent 
normal  families  in  this  class  usually  run  from  $750 
to  $1,500  a  year,  the  number  making  more  than 
$1,200  being  comparatively  small,  but  there  are 
many  self-respecting  families  whose  earnings  are 
less  than  $750.  Within  the  average  figures  the  pro- 
portion of  income  expended  for  subsistence  and 
fuel  (the  latter  in  part  used  in  cooking)  commonly 
runs  from  45  to  60  per  cent,  the  higher  proportion 
for  the  lower  earnings.  This  percentage  is  given 
quite  invariably  in  tabular  exhibits  of  government 
and  other  reports,  among  them  before  me  various 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE  17 

Bulletins  of  the  national  Bureau  of  Labor,  the  Fed- 
eral "Lodge  Report"  of  1910  on  "Wages  and  Prices 
of  Commodities,"  and  the  "Report  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Commission  on  the  Cost  of  Living,"  1910. 
Bj  a  "normal  family"  (Massachusetts  report)  "is 
meant  one  with  the  following  attributes :  It  has 
no  boarders  or  dependents.  It  does  not  own  its 
dwelling  place.  It  has  an  expenditure  given  for 
rent,  fuel,  lighting,  clothing,  and  food.  It  has  both 
a  husband  and  wife.  It  has  not  more  than  five 
children,  no  one  of  whom  is  over  fourteen  years 
of  age."  Though  in  Manhattan,  among  our  mil- 
lion, many  normal  families  manage  to  exist  on  a 
total  of  $750,  or  even  less,  the  Charity  Organiza- 
tion's lowest  figures  for  the  maintenance  of  a  fam- 
ily of  five — father,  mother,  and  three  children — ' 
without  risk  of  becoming  dependent  in  some  form, 
is  $900  a  year.  The  Federal  Bureau  of  Labor  in 
1908  computed  that  among  2,500  workingmen's 
families  in  the  country  at  large  the  annual  outlay 
for  food  was  $375  (now  increased  by  what  per 
cent?),  and  before  the  Lodge  committee  several  of 
the  big  grocery  store  proprietors  in  Baltimore  and 
Richmond  testified  that  the  family  accounts  of  peo- 
ple of  average  means  ran  $30  to  $40  a  month  (to 


i8    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

which  for  New  York  must  be  added  what  per 
cent?). 

In  these  statistics,  which  indicate  the  financial 
situation  of  wage-workers,  clerks,  men  in  small 
business,  and  numerous  professional  people,  is 
sketched  the  problem  of  table  outlay  for  our  mil- 
lion. The  reader  can  see  the  grade  in  which  his 
circumstances  place  him.  If  his  annual  food  ac- 
count is  $400,  which  in  New  York  is  below  the 
family  average,  or  is  $600,  more  nearly  the  average 
for  an  income  of  $1,000  to  $1,200,  a  saving  of  20 
per  cent  may  mean  to  him  the  difference  between 
deficit  and  surplus  in  his  total  family  account  at 
the  end  of  the  year.  If,  by  painstaking  household 
management,  the  consumer  controlling  earnings 
from  $750  to  $900  can  save  $100  to  $150,  this  sum 
in  pocket  may  transfer  his  family  from  the  class 
living  unhappily  on  the  verge  of  dependence  to  the 
class  living  in  the  pride  of  self -maintenance.  And 
to  the  family  earning  $1,000  or  $1,200,  a  20  per 
cent  shrinkage  in  expenditure  for  the  table  signi- 
fies relief  from  many  an  anxious  hour.  If  each  of 
the  two  hundred  thousand  families  constituting  our 
million  inhabitants  could  save  $100  a  year,  the  total 
would  be  twenty  million  dollars. 

The  purpose  of  these  chapters  is  to  submit  to 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  19 

the  reader  a  collection  of  facts  on  which  he  may 
form  a  judgment  as  to  whether  it  shall  be  possible 
for  him,  as  head  of  a  family,  to  effect  an  economy, 
to  the  percentage  indicated,  or  even  do  better.  This 
economy  is  to  be  brought  about  in  part  by  saving 
and  in  part  on  buying.  That  is,  the  consumer  is  to 
practice  the  systematic  habits  of  a  wise  thrift  and 
he  is  to  take  a  share  in  establishing  in  his  com- 
munity the  most  efficient  methods  developed  through 
the  experiences  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world  for 
transmitting  provisions  from  producer  to  consumer. 
The  immediate  result  he  strives  for,  it  is  assumed, 
is  better  nourishment  in  his  home  and  the  general 
benefits  of  an  improvement  in  his  circumstances.  A 
further  result,  in  consequence  of  the  improved  in- 
dividual and  social  conditions  implied,  is  a  perma- 
nent step  in  human  progress  through  educating  the 
consumer  and  eliminating  what  is  now  the  waste 
effort,  the  false  commercial  motions,  taking  place 
between  producer  and  consumer. 

Let  the  consumer  begin  with  himself — the  mas- 
culine here  including  the  feminine  fender.  The 
first  point  to  be  made  is  in  his  own  mind.  He  must 
fortify  himself  with  confidence  in  himself.  He  is 
not  going  to  "lay  down."  He  is  not  going  to 
whine.  What  the  thrifty  of  his  class  do  he  can  do, 


20    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

if  his  handicaps  are  no  heavier  than  the  average. 
He  is  setting  out  to  master  his  personal  economic 
situation  now,  to  the  best  of  his  abilities,  which  he 
may  never  have  fully  exercised,  and  to  the  best 
of  his  opportunities,  which  heretofore  he  may  not 
have  fully  seized.  The  one  practical  principle,  as 
well  as  immediate  method,  on  which  he  can  rely  is 
a  systematic  control  of  his  own  acts  as  a  domestic 
economist.  He  is  going  to  make  the  best  of  things 
as  they  are — no  matter  how  much  lighter  his  bur- 
dens might  be  were  we  in  the  happy  coming  age 
when  the  entire  proper  earnings  of  our  million 
shall  be  retained  by  our  million.  He  is  going  to  do 
it,  for  one  good  reason,  because  he  is  a  soldier  fight- 
ing that  a  fairer  society  may  be  evolved ;  the  fuller 
his  purse  the  stronger  is  he  armed;  his  every  act 
that  counts  for  his  own  benefit  also  helps  his  plans 
for  social  improvement ;  by  each  step  that  he  moves 
toward  self-reliance  he  adds  his  mite  in  permanently 
advancing  society;  in  beginning  with  himself  he 
takes  up  the  thread  of  private  duty  that  may  lead 
to  more  effective  work  in  his  self-imposed  public 
duty — that  of  helping  his  fellow-strugglers  to  com- 
bat economic  injustice,  to  elevate  the  standard  of 
living  among  the  masses,  and  hence  establish  a 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  21 

higher  state  of  society.    Thoughts,  these,  to  be  kept 
in  mind  as  our  practical  points  are  unfolded. 

And  now  our  first  proposition.  The  beginning 
of  "cost-of-living"  reforms,  in  many  a  household, 
comes  with  the  solution  of  this  question :  Are  the 
selecting  and  the  keeping  and  the  cooking  of  the 
food  in  the  family  up  to  the  possibilities  of  a  wise 
economy?  Our  friendly  consumer  will  not  permit 
himself,  on  reading  this  suggestive  query,  to  reject 
the  consideration  of  commonplace  everyday  pecu- 
niary bother  which  it  implies,  a  matter  under  his 
control,  in  order  to  reconstruct,  for  the  twentieth 
time  perhaps,  his  demonstration  of  the  possible 
benefits  to  be  conferred  on  all  society  through  an 
ideal  system  of  production,  exchange,  and  distri- 
bution, a  matter  for  many  a  weary  day  to  be  be- 
yond his  reach  or  that  of  the  jangling  theorists.  No 
contradiction  is  to  be  offered  him  here  if  he  asserts 
that  the  majority  in  the  poorer  classes  suffer  from 
social  wrongs  rather  than  from  personal  neglect  of 
picayune  economies.  No  one  ought  to  deny  him 
the  right  to  cry  out  on  all  proper  occasions  against, 
for  example,  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  water  in 
great  corporations,  or  the  social  menace  of  "high 
finance,"  or  the  delays  in  the  progress  of  what  has 
come  to  be  termed  "conservation"  of  the  country's 


22    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

natural  resources.  Everyone  with  a  conscience 
must  take  sides  with  the  agitator  who  denounces, 
and  sanely  struggles  against,  economic  injustice. 

An  unwelcome  but  persistent  fact  of  his  exist- 
ence to  the  man  of  restricted  means  is  that  well- 
adjusted  self -management  prescribes,  besides  his 
daily  labor,  unremitting  care  even  in  petty  things. 
Shave  he  must,  bathe  he  must,  attire  himself  de- 
cently he  must,  and  count  his  pennies  going  for  sub- 
sistence he  must,  if  he  would  not  drop  behind  in 
the  procession.  When  he  comes  to  declaring  of  any 
of  these  things  that  they  are  not  worth  the  doing 
he  confesses  an  unmanly  surrender  to  hopelessness, 
a  falling  behind  and  below  his  fellow-toilers  who 
are  making  the  fight  that  counts  for  civilization. 

In  these  days  of  controversy  over  the  remoter 
causes  of  high  prices,  the  consumer  must  guard 
himself  against  the  false  teachers  who  would  make 
him  believe  that  whatever  he  does  for  his  personal 
benefit  is  profitless  or  eventually  to  his  damage  and 
that  of  his  neighbors.  When  "the  flood-of -cheap- 
gold"  theory  of  high  prices  is  cited  to  him  to  prove 
that  commodities  will  never  be  cheaper,  let  him 
remember  that  the  rise  in  prices  has  by  no  means 
been  uniform  throughout  the  world's  gold-money 
countries,  that  food  stuff  prices  vary  with  the  crops 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  23 

and  the  seasons,  that  impediments  to  trade  are  a 
primary  cause  in  discouraging  production,  that  im- 
proved machinery  or  methods  sometimes  cut  prices 
of  commodities  in  half,  and  that  certain  staples 
have  recently  fallen  in  price  both  in  Europe  and 
America.  When  employers'  association  lawyers 
tell  him  that  his  own  trade  unions  have  raised  the 
prices  of  table  necessaries,  let  him  quote  the  Lodge 
report  (page  122),  which  says  that  the  greatest 
advances  "have  been  made  in  the  groups  of  com- 
modities in  which  the  labor  cost  is  not  a  controlling 
factor/'  as  well  as  the  Massachusetts  report  (page 
53o),  which  finds  that  the  trade  unions  can  not  "be 
regarded  as  a  direct  and  active  cause  of  the  recent 
increase  of  prices."  When  the  revolutionist  solely 
through  governmental  activities  raises  the  paradox- 
ical objection  to  individual  saving  that  it  is  falla- 
cious, that  the  more  the  masses  save  the  worse  they 
are  off — a  doctrine  more  common  twenty  years  ago 
than  now — let  the  dime-saving  consumer  reply  that 
the  dollar  he  did  not  spend  last  week  is  good  for 
his  nourishment  a  part  of  this  week,  that  each  ad- 
ditional dollar  he  obtains,  through  striking  or  oth- 
erwise, is  tantamount  to  an  increased  saving,  and 
that  if  he  saved  for  nothing  else  he  might  save  to 
strike  and  to  stay  on  strike  to  victory,  in  case  his 


24    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

wages  or  conditions  at  work  were  unfair.  When, 
again,  he  is  in  danger  of  being  dazzled  by  wonders 
to  be  worked  through  the  magic  wand  of  this  or 
that  boon-conferring  politician  if  but  elected  to 
office,  let  the  consumer  recall  the  political  nostrums 
he  has  already  ineffectively  swallowed — and  pay 
strict  attention  to  his  job. 

Aye,  to  return  from  misty  theories  to  work-a- 
day  earth.  We  have  perhaps  now  cleared  the  way 
for  the  consumer  to  be  doing  things,  even  small 
things,  for  himself.  Back  then  to  that  self -ques- 
tioning as  to  the  management  of  food  in  the  home. 
Household  storage  facilities  often  control  the 
amount  of  food  and  fuel  laid  in  by  the  consumer. 
His  room  is  insufficient  or  he  has  found  the  keep 
of  an  ice-box  beyond  his  means.  But  even  on  these 
oft-considered  points  perhaps  he  may  still  be  open 
to  suggestion.  Dry  groceries  can  be  put  away  in 
small  space,  stowed  in  plain  packing  boxes,  set  one 
above  another,  high  toward  the  ceiling,  to  be  reached 
from  a  chair,  their  lids  opening  sidewise,  like  the 
cupboard  door.  Potatoes,  onions,  and  apples, 
bought  by  the  bushel,  will  keep  long  in  a  moder- 
ately cool  place.  But  the  principal  conserver  of 
perishable  food,  cooked  or  uncooked,  is  the  ice-box, 
and  with  care  it  can  be  cheaply  managed.  "The 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  25 

construction  of  an  ice-chest,"  as  described  in  Farm- 
ers' Bulletin  475,  issued  by  the  Agricultural  De- 
partment, may  be  read  with  profit.  The  making  of 
such  a  box  promises  a  job  for  that  boy  of  the  con- 
sumer's family  who  is  in  the  manual  training  class. 
The  ice  in  a  chest,  if  wrapped  in  layers  of  news- 
paper, keeps  longer  than  when  left  loose.  How- 
ever, good  managers  among  people  of  small  earn- 
ings can  get  along  without  an  ice-box. 

The  first  necessary  moves  toward  establishing  a 
confidence  in  his  own  ability  to  become  a  successful 
household  manager  may  have  been  accomplished 
when  the  consumer  can  see  an  appreciable  saving, 
if  not  through  an  ice-box  at  least  through  storage 
boxes  or  barrels.  On  this  point,  R.  A.  Pearson, 
President  of  the  New  York  State  Agricultural  So- 
ciety, wrote  in  his  report,  January,  1912: 

"Some  families  lose  more  in  a  month  through 
the  payment  of  exorbitant  rates  for  food  products 
in  vest  pocket  quantities  than  they  would  have  to 
pay  in  rent  for  enough  larger  space  to  live  in  to 
enable  them  to  buy  food  supplies  in  quantities  suf- 
ficient to  last  a  few  days  or  weeks." 

The  matter  being  settled  of  laying  in  provisions 
in  quantities  as  large  as  desirable,  or  as  his  purse 
and  storage  room  will  allow,  and  of  using  them 


26    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

with  judgment,  the  consumer's  next  care  will  be  to 
get  his  money's  worth,  in  weight,  measure,  and 
quality,  when  buying.  A  pair  of  scales  (bought 
at  the  ten-cent  store)  and  a  quart  and  a  peck  meas- 
ure (home-made,  of  cardboard,  if  not  of  wood) 
contain  powers  of  revelation  as  to  the  gouging 
practices  which  are  common  with,  let  us  say,  wicked 
tradesmen  only. 

On  quality,  or  grades,  or  points  in  selecting,  the 
consumer  will  gather  many  a  good  hint  upon  ob- 
taining, free,  from  the  United  States  Department 
of  Agriculture,  Washington,  D.  C.,  these  pamphlets : 
(i)  Farmers'  Bulletin  391,  "Economical  Use  of 
Meat  in  the  Home";  (2)  "Consumers'  Fancies"; 
(3)  Farmers'  Bulletin  256  on  "Preparation  of  Veg- 
etables for  the  Table";  (4)  "Food  Customs  and 
Diet  in  American  Homes";  (5)  Farmers'  Bulletin 
413,  "The  Care  of  Milk  and  Its  Use  in  the  Home"; 
(6)  Farmers'  Bulletin  249,  "Cereal  Breakfast 
Foods";  (7)  Farmers'  Bulletin  142,  "Principles  of 
Nutrition  and  Nutritive  Value  of  Food." 

These  publications  are  trustworthy,  packed  with 
information,  and  written  in  the  interest  of  the  con- 
sumer. They  together  contain  something  of  an 
education  for  the  beginner  and  much  information 
at  times  neglected  by  the  experienced  householder. 


MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE  27 

In  a  way  they  imply  an  indictment  of  our  people, 
as  a  mass,  whether  as  cooks,  or  purchasers,  or 
judges  of  food.  Many  heads  of  families  seem  to 
be  in  the  infant  class  as  housekeepers. 

When  the  consumer  has  by  means  of  these  print- 
ed guides  in  diet,  or  through  hard  experience, 
learned  what  are  the  best  and  cheapest  cuts  of  meat 
for  his  needs,  and  how  to  prepare  them  and  con- 
serve and  re-prepare  the  parts  left  over,  and  how 
he  ought  to  buy  fruits  and  vegetables,  not  solely  on 
their  appearance,  but  by  their  taste  and  substance, 
he  will  be  keen  for  other  information.  He  will 
probably  try  to  get  at  the  secrets  of  the  price  values 
and  the  food  values  of  package  goods.  Dr.  S.  W. 
Stratton,  Director  of  the  Bureau  of  Standards  at 
Washington,  testified  in  1910  that  while  rolled  oats 
in  bulk  varied  between  4  and  5  cents  a  pound, 
Quaker  oats  in  packages  sold  for  nearly  8  cents 
a  pound;  rice  that  cost  loose  between  5  and  10  cents 
brought  when  treated  and  packed  32  cents;  wheat, 
selling  when  raw  and  untreated  at  3  cents  per 
pound,  ran  up  to  18  cents  as  Egg-O-See,  22  cents 
as  Force,  and  25  cents  as  puffed  wheat;  corn,  at  2 
cents,  sold  at  4  as  cornmeal,  at  12  as  Post  toasties, 
and  i$y2  as  toasted  cornflakes;  sliced  bacon,  retail- 
ing at  28,  brought  41  to  52  in  sealed  packages,  and 


28    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

chipped  beef,  30  to  40  cents  a  pound  in  bulk, 
brought  49  to  51  in  package  form.  The  Lodge 
report  found:  "There  must  be  an  agreement  of 
some  kind  among  the  cereal  manufacturers."  A 
western  dealer  in  foods,  testifying  before  the  Fed- 
eral Commission,  said:  "When  you  buy  bread  at 
7^2  cents  a  pound  it  costs  you  three  times  as  much 
as  it  does  when  you  buy  flour  at  $6  per  barrel." 

Turn  now  to  the  mute  but  obvious  testimony  of 
the  goods  in  the  multitudinous  small  shops  cater- 
ing to  our  million.  The  grocers'  shelves  are  pic- 
turesque and  eloquent  in  indicating  the  enormous 
consumption  of  package  goods.  The  fancy  fruit- 
erers' display  is  largely  of  wax-skinned,  pithy-pulp, 
flavorless  show-pieces.  The  little  butchers  and  deli- 
catessen dealers  who  penetrate  almost  every  block 
confess  by  their  presence  the  fat  profits  that  must 
be  made  on  petty  sales  of  meats,  whether  fresh, 
canned  or  cooked.  Bakeries,  many  of  which  never 
bake,  are  on  every  hand.  This  swarm  of  retailers 
tells  a  story,  which  ought  to  carry  its  own  lessons, 
of  the  consumer's  ignorance  or  of  his  indifference  to 
his  own  health  or  pecuniary  interest.  It  might  be 
reasonably  imagined  that  even  the  hall-roomers 
who,  despairing  of  "the  simple  life,"  are  living 
"the  delicatessen  life,"  would  in  self-defense  hark 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          29 

back  to  the  breakfast  of  corn-meal  mush,  which 
stands  by  the  stomach  so  well,  and  the  rough- faced 
fruit  that  often  has  taste,  juice  and  nutrition,  and 
home-made  coffee  not  composed  of  chicory  and 
barley  and  not  boiled  down  to  tannic  acid. 

Let  you  and  me  agree,  reader,  that  we  need  not 
proceed,  in  the  course  of  our  inquiries,  into  the 
region  of  controversies  over  flesh  as  against  vege- 
tables or  eating  much  as  against  eating  little,  neces- 
sarily, however,  giving  respectful  attention  to  the 
excellent  Mr.  Fletcher,  who  preaches  the  riches  in 
mastication  and  abstinence.  We  may  dismiss  this 
phase  of  the  subject  with  the  comment  that  in  re- 
gard to  it  great  doctors  disagree.  Dr.  T.  J.  Allen, 
of  Washington,  "food  specialist/'  editor  of  a  "Diet 
and  Health  Hints"  department  for  a  syndicate  of 
daily  newspapers,  challenges  the  world  to  a  debate 
on — "Resolved,  That  the  average  man  can  do  bet- 
ter physical  and  mental  work  and  live  twice  as  long 
on  a  diet  consisting  of  entire  wheat  bread  and 
water  than  on  the  average  diet  furnished  in  the  best 
hotel."  Directly  opposed  to  this  doctrine  are  the 
teachings  of  Dr.  Henry  T.  Finck,  who,  turning 
from  music  to  gastronomy,  argues  from  his  cos- 
mopolitan experience  that  the  nations  partaking 
generously  of  a  rich  variety  of  palatable  dishes  are 


30          MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

the  ones  that  are  leading  the  world  in  mental  and 
bodily  vigor.  Then  Dr.  Woods  Hutchinson  tells 
us  in  "Instinct  and  Health"  that  tendencies  of  ap- 
petite are  in  a  large  way  safe  guides  to  the  normal 
human  being.  You  have  here  your  choice  of  ad- 
visers. But  we  all  know  that  each  human  stomach 
is  a  little  kingdom  that  resents  alien  government. 

Reflecting  on  the  suggestions  here  imparted  to 
him — perhaps  only  a  summary  of  familiar  points, 
like  a  sermon  on  man's  recurrent  sins — the  reader 
may  mentally  calculate  what  savings  in  the  kitchen 
he  might  possibly  effect  through  buying  in  econom- 
ical quantities  the  most  nutritious  food.  Could 
they  amount  to  $10  a  month?  Let  us  say  only  $5. 
Well,  $5  a  month  is  $60  a  year. 

But  man  takes  into  his  mouth  not  only  solid 
food  but  drink.  How  many  thousands  of  more 
or  less  artistic  drinking  places  adorn  the  area  in 
which  our  million  dwell?  Their  costly  outward 
and  brilliant  inward  decoration  seems  to  indicate 
that  a  goodly  percentage  of  the  whole  of  our  thir- 
teen hundred  thousand  feel  in  duty  bound  to  con- 
tribute toward  making  New  York  a  city  beauti- 
ful— in  its  festive  drinking  spots.  As  he  separates 
himself  from  his  money  over  a  bar,  especially  in 
treating,  the  consumer  usually  also  separates  him- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          31 

self  from  the  thrifty.  Rarely  is  he  sure  he  is  not 
throwing  his  good  money  away  in  exchange  for 
chemical  "blends"  and  "brews" — much  of  it  merely 
doctored,  colored,  carbonized,  sophisticated,  se- 
ductively labeled  crude  alcohol,  the  same  old  de- 
ceitful devil,  in  whatever  of  its  varied  forms.  And 
mark  you,  the  world-wide  discussion  of  the  uses 
of  alcohol  as  remedy,  stimulant,  or  refreshment  has 
during  the  last  decade  left  the  number  of  its  de- 
fenders among  those  most  competent  to  judge — 
the  members  of  the  medical  profession — only  a 
small  minority  in  any  country  within  the  domain  of 
modern  science. 

If  a  consumer's  family  expends  a  total  of  ten 
cents  a  day  for  drink,  it  sums  up  in  a  year  $36.50. 
A  few  more  drinks  on  Sundays  and  holidays,  and 
the  amount  is  $40.  Cut  that  out  from  the  annual 
family  outlay,  where  it  occurs,  you  who  feel  obliged 
to  save  your  dimes,  add  it  to  the  $60  saved  on  the 
former  unwise  selecting  and  careless  keeping  and 
wasting  of  food,  and  there  is  passed  over  to  the 
right  side  of  the  ledger  in  the  course  of  the  year 
just  one  hundred  dollars. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  the  saving  in  cash  ex- 
penditure by  these  means  should  be  but  fifty  dol- 
lars. Profit  has  been  gained  otherwise.  A  fair 


32    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

start  in  the  habits  of  wise  living  has  been  made. 
Hand-to-mouth  methods  of  feeding,  with  their  con- 
sequent periods  of  semi-starvation  in  the  household, 
have  given  way  to  regular  meals.  Knowledge  has 
conquered  ignorance  and  irregularity.  An  empty 
head  is  often  the  direct  cause  of  an  empty  stomach. 
Are  the  wage-workers  becoming  more  temperate  ? 
Does  their  organization  promote  self-control  with 
regard  to  drink?  There  are  broad  facts  that  to 
a  fair  mind  must  indicate  affirmative  replies  to  these 
queries.  In  Germany,  the  working-class,  in  its 
party  and  trade-union  organization,  by  substituting 
in  numerous  towns  its  own  meeting  halls  for  the 
public  drinking  houses  as  evening  and  holiday  re- 
sorts for  its  members,  has  brought  about  a  reduc- 
tion of  the  average  outlay  for  drink.  In  cases,  in 
Berlin,  where  the  support  of  the  organized  work- 
ers' hall  was  in  part  pre-reckoned  from  the  usual 
average  working-class  consumption  of  beer,  it  has 
been  found  that  on  quitting  the  public  saloons  many 
members  abandoned  the  beer-drinking  habit.  To 
make  up  the  deficits,  the  membership  dues  have 
had  to  be  increased.  In  Great  Britain,  the  co-opera- 
tive halls,  commonly  open  to  discussions  of  the  so- 
cial question  in  every  phase,  are  closed  to  drink. 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE          33 

Workingmen  M.  P.'s  and  other  leaders  are  fre- 
quently "tee-totallers." 

The  working-class  movement  toward  justice 
throughout  the  civilized  world  is  imbued  with  a 
profound  moral  spirit.  Springing  from  this  spirit 
is  a  developing  thrift  and  temperance  in  the  masses, 
leading  to  a  clearer  vision  of  true  sociological  prin- 
ciples and  a  better  knowledge  of  the  practical  steps 
necessary  in  social  progress. 

What  ennobles  every  humble  but  well-considered 
effort  toward  a  great  end  in  view  is  the  spirit  that 
prompts  the  act.  Even  the  systematic  saving  of 
copper  cents  thus  becomes  dignified  as  a  duty. 


III.     FROM  PRODUCER  TO  CONSUMER—- 
THE MOST  COSTLY  OBSTRUCTION. 

WHEN  the  householder's  gas-pipes  or  water-pipes 
become  obstructed,  he  at  once  brings  in  the  plumber. 
When  the  city's  water-mains  or  sewers  fail  in  their 
free  inlet  or  outlet,  it  is  expected  that  the  difficulty 
will  speedily  be  remedied  by  a  public  department. 
But  the  successive  barriers  that  clog  the  direct  flow 
of  foodstuffs  from  country  producer  to  city  con- 
sumer have  long  withstood  the  assaults  of  would-be 
reformers. 

Our  typical  consumer,  now  on  economy  bent,  has 
as  a  beginning  informed  himself  as  to  the  ways 
and  means  for  selecting  and  conserving  his  food 
to  advantage.  He  is  done  with  the  improvidence 
of  unsystematized  living.  He  is  choosing  his  table 
necessaries  not  only  with  a  care  as  to  their  cost 
but  with  a  view  to  their  nutritive  value  in  main- 
taining the  physical  and  mental  efficiency  of  the 
members  of  his  family.  He  now  turns  to  the 
sources  of  his  buying. 

There  is  no  longer  any  novelty,  at  the  present 
34 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  35 

stage  of  the  discussion  of  the  cost  of  living,  in 
statements  of  the  disparity  between  farmers'  re- 
ceipts and  consumers'  expenditures  for  one  and  the 
same  article.  Yet  a  review  of  some  of  the  rele- 
vant facts  may  here  be  profitable. 

Whether  improved  methods  might  bring  him  his 
country  produce  cheaper  than  he  gets  it  at  the  usual 
retail  shopkeeper's  prices  is  a  question  the  consumer 
can  have  answered  on  asking  another:  What  is 
the  difference  between  farm  prices  and  city  store 
prices?  If  it  is  more  than  the  lowest  freight  rates 
plus  the  cost  of  the  most  direct  and  freely  competi- 
tive methods  of  handling  otherwise,  the  consumer 
is,  to  the  amount  of  the  excess,  paying  somewhere 
a  forced  toll  and  not  simply  for  service. 

The  "Long  Island  Agronomist"  tells  the  story  of 
a  Chicago  man  finding  in  a  barrel  of  apples  for 
which  he  paid  $4  a  note  which  read :  "Dear  Con- 
sumer— I  was  paid  75  cents  for  this  barrel;  how 
much  did  you  pay?"  A  Brooklyn  man  writes  to  a 
daily  newspaper  that  recently  a  local  meat  dealer 
had  told  him  he  paid  $18  a  hundred  pounds  for 
lamb,  for  the  like  of  which  a  Utah  sheep-grower 
standing  by  said  he  received  but  $4  a  hundred,  and 
the  query  was  raised,  Who  got  the  $14?  A  farm- 
er's wife  at  Sunnyside,  R.  L,  sends  this  plaint  to  a 


36    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

newspaper:  "Apples,  choice  varieties,  all  sprayed 
fruit,  we  are  feeding  to  our  cattle.  If  we  send 
them  to  a  commission  house  they  will  return  us  a 
bill  for  cartage  and  commission."  John  B.  Cole- 
man,  as  Special  Deputy  Attorney-General  conduct- 
ing in  1910  a  milk  investigation  in  New  York,  said: 
"I  saw  a  statement  yesterday  to  the  effect  that  the 
farmers  in  northern  New  Jersey  are  feeding  their 
milk  to  the  hogs  rather  than  sell  it  to  the  large 
milk-dealers  at  the  prevailing  price.  Today  the 
large  dealers  have  raised  the  price  of  bottled  milk 
to  consumers  from  eight  to  nine  cents  a  quart."  A 
writer  in  a  New  York  daily  newspaper,  January  31, 
1912,  stated  that  fishermen  at  Great  South  Bay 
told  him  they  averaged  about  two  cents  a  pound 
for  their  flounders,  while  he  was  paying  at  an  up- 
town Sixth  avenue  fish-market  for  home  use  18 
cents.  In  another  newspaper  is  comment  by  a 
country  shipper  on  the  rise  in  price  of  a  barrel  of 
his  apples  after  it  left  his  hands.  While  83^  cents 
net  had  been  paid  him,  the  "Producer's  Price  Cur- 
rent" quoted  the  New  York  market  price  at  $2  to 
$2.25  for  the  same  grade.  A  man  living  near  El- 
mira  writes  that  potatoes  were  delivered  at  various 
railroad  stations  near  his  home  for  45  to  55  cents 
a  bushel  for  transport  to  New  York,  where  the 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE          37 

price  was  $1.60.  An  editorial  writer  in  the  "Fruit- 
man's  Guide,"  expressing  his  opinion  that  "if  peo- 
ple ate  more  grapefruit  they  would  pay  less  money 
in  doctors'  bills,"  says  that  while  the  jobbers  were 
selling  grapefruit,  fifty  to  the  box,  at  $3,  six  cents 
apiece,  New  York  restaurants  were  serving  halves 
at  30  cents — '"an  impost  on  the  consumers  that 
measures  up  to  the  wildest  dreams  of  usury."  The 
report  of  President  Pearson,  New  York  State  Agri- 
cultural Society,  1912,  has  this  paragraph:  "But 
lest  it  be  thought  that  agricultural  prices  have  taken 
a  permanent  high  level,  let  me  remind  you  that  in 
the  year  1911  farmers  in  New  York  sold  large 
quantities  of  potatoes  at  25  cents  per  bushel,  eggs 
at  17  cents  per  dozen,  and  milk  at  two  cents  per 
quart."  A  wholesaler  wrote  in  the  month  of  May 
a  number  of  articles  for  a  New  York  daily  news- 
paper giving  these  wholesale  and  retail  prices  for 
provisions  on  the  same  date:  Strawberries  passed 
from  a  range  of  3  to  10  cents  up  to  15  to  30  cents; 
other  berries,  from  12  and  17  to  35 ;  salad,  50  cents 
to  $i  a  barrel  to  10  cents  a  head;  wax  and  string 
beans,  40  cents  to  $i  a  basket  to  15  cents  a  quart — 
quotations  showing  that  the  greatest  jump  in  prices 
occurs  between  the  wholesaler's  and  the  retailer's. 
Widening  our  view  from  local  and  individual 


38    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

complaints,  loud  in  the  press  of  the  cities,  to  the 
findings  of  government  and  other  investigators,  we 
see  that  the  evidence  against  the  middlemen  is  uni- 
form. The  Industrial  Commission  reported  several 
years  ago  that  retail  customers  in  general  were  pay- 
ing over  150  per  cent  more  than  the  farmers  re- 
ceived for  onions,  135  per  cent  more  for  cabbage, 
400  per  cent  more  for  oranges,  90  per  cent  more 
for  apples  by  the  barrel,  80  per  cent  more  for  po- 
tatoes by  the  bushel,  88  per  cent  more  for  poultry, 
and  so  on  throughout  a  long  list  of  provisions.  In 
the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Markets,  Prices, 
and  Costs  of  the  New  York  State  Food  Investigat- 
ing Commission,  issued  August  i,  1912,  it  is  esti- 
mated (page  5)  that  "The  annual  food  supply  of 
Greater  New  York  costs  at  the  transportation  ter- 
minals $3 50,000, ocx)  or  over,  and  that  it  costs  in 
the  consumers'  kitchens  $500,000,000  or  over,"  an 
"addition  of  about  45  per  cent."  It  was  asserted 
before  the  Texas  Farmers'  Congress  in  July,  1911, 
that  farmers  got  but  nine  billion  dollars  for  prod- 
ucts that  cost  the  consumers  thirteen  billions. 

Thus,  whether  the  householder  consults  his  neigh- 
bor, or  the  press,  or  competent  observers  over  wide 
areas,  or  Uncle  Sam's  reference  books,  on  this  point 
of  an  increase  in  the  price  of  foodstuffs  between 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE  39 

country  producer  and  city  consumer  far  beyond 
that  warranted  by  service,  the  testimony  is  uni- 
form. It  is  so  great  as  to  indicate  to  a  certainty 
that  our  commerce  in  provisions  is  by  a  defective 
system.  Where  is  the  chief  trouble? 

First  in  order  of  the  indispensable  agents  be- 
tween the  agriculturist  and  the  consumer  comes 
the  transportation  company.  Whether  the  rail- 
roads, under  the  stress  of  a  regulation  becoming 
more  stringent  every  year,  can  take  a  charge  in 
excess  of  dividends  honestly  earned  is  here  not  so 
much  the  question  as  the  proportion  they  get  of 
the  price  the  consumer  of  provisions  finally  pays. 
When  the  inquirer  wishes  to  settle  his  judgment 
upon  the  long-standing  dispute  between  the  rail- 
road managers  and  "the  middlemen"  as  to  which 
should  bear  the  onus  for  the  doubling,  or  trebling, 
of  prices  between  farm  and  table,  the  railroad  men 
refer  him  to  the  various  stacks  of  new  and  old 
State  and  Federal  reports,  containing  scores  or 
hundreds  of  pages  of  tabular  statements  showing 
decreased  freight  rates  for  the  successive  decades 
in  railroad  history,  with  slight  recent  advances  on 
certain  classifications,  which,  however,  they  assert, 
in  no  wise  justify  any  considerable  part  of  the  in- 
crease of  prices  on  foodstuffs.  President  Pearson 


40    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

of  the  Agricultural  Society  said  that  "in  some  in- 
stances a  desirable  cheapening  in  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction includes  a  reduction  in  freight  rates,"  but 
"the  railroads  are  blamed  more  than  they  deserve 
in  this  connection."  His  criticism  is  of  lack  of 
uniform  rather  than  of  excessive  charges.  The 
Massachusetts  Commission's  opinion  (page  284) 
is:  "Nobody  appears  to  try  seriously  to  lay  the 
blame  for  high  prices  at  the  door  of  the  railroads. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  they  are  among  the  greatest 
sufferers;  they  are  getting  less  for  what  they  give 
than  ever  before  in  their  history.  Measured  in 
money,  their  transportation  charges  are  a  little 
above  the  lowest  point  ever  reached."  The  Com- 
mission prints  pages  of  summaries  on  which  this 
conclusion  is  founded. 

Railroad  managers  put  emphasis  on  the  fact 
that  their  profits  obviously  lie  in  the  largest  quan- 
tity of  freight  to  be  carried  at  fixed  and  known 
rates,  whereas  with  middlemen  the  usual  object  in 
practice  is  the  highest  attainable  prices  on  the  quan- 
tities they  handle,  while  market  quotations  are 
subject  to  manipulated  changes  at  every  stage  in 
the  handling.  The  railroad  companies  are  willing 
to  supply  abundantly  and  even  at  times  to  glut  a 
market  with  foodstuffs ;  the  dealers  find  their  easiest 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  41 

profits,  if  not  in  a  dearth,  in  a  moderate  supply. 
The  Reading  Railroad  transports  free  to  any  point 
on  its  lines  any  wares  bought  in  the  great  Phila- 
delphia Reading  terminal  market.  The  Massachu- 
setts Commission  says :  "The  terminal  facilities  of 
the  Pennsylvania  lines  at  Pittsburgh  for  the  recep- 
tion of  fruits,  vegetables,  milk,  and  other  perish- 
able produce  are  models  of  their  kind,  and  are  an 
excellent  example  of  railway  enterprise."  Who 
can  testify  to  any  methods  systematically  practiced 
by  the  New  York  retail  dealers  for  increasing  the 
general  stock  of  supplies,  so  as  to  reduce  prices! 

Of  all  the  phases  of  the  trade  in  provisions  to 
be  brought  to  light  in  this  consumer's  quest,  that  at 
this  point  coming  into  view  is  of  the  first  impor- 
tance. The  mass  of  consumers  is  subdivided  in 
numerous  neighborhood  groups  served  by  local  re- 
tail dealers.  The  interest  of  each  dealer  lies,  not 
in  making  commodities  over-plentiful  so  as  to  break 
market  rates,  but  in  keeping  up  prices  on  the  usual 
volume  of  his  stock,  which  is  deliberately,  in  fact 
necessarily,  limited  to  the  effective  demands  of  a 
small  custom.  This  system  of  retailing,  it  is  seen, 
is  rigid.  It  cannot  so  develop  an  elasticity  as  to 
absorb  the  bountiful  supply  of  table  necessaries 
which  producers  from  time  to  time  have  on  their 


42  MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

lands,  awaiting  a  call  to  the  markets.  Retail  food- 
stuff dealers'  prices  are  mostly  "conventional,"  as 
the  economists  say.  On  this  point,  the  New  York 
"Produce  News"  has  remarked :  "Retail  prices  on 
a  great  deal  of  produce  in  small  lots  do  not  vary 
much  from  year  to  year."  It  is  the  established 
large  profits  on  these  prices,  firmly  maintained  at 
"the  level  which  customers  will  stand,"  as  supplies 
vary  with  the  seasons,  that  brings  into  existence 
the  multiplicity  of  small  groceries  and  fruit  and 
vegetable  stores,  each  having  a  custom  not  readily 
subject  to  expansion. 

In  inquiring  whether  it  is  really  a  fact  that  the 
middleman  retailer  wants  a  high  price  for  the  small 
quantity  his  experience  has  shown  him  he  can  of 
a  certainty  dispose  of  safely  rather  than  a  low 
price  on  possibly  large  sales,  the  first  point  coming 
to  the  consumer's  attention  is  that  in  the  city  there 
are  mainly  two  distinct  classes  of  shop-keeping  re- 
tailers in  foodstuffs — the  "corner  grocer,"  having  a 
small  area  of  delivery,  and  the  "big  stores,"  which 
usually  do  not  handle  green  vegetables,  covering 
the  entire  community  in  their  delivery. 

The  custom  of  the  New  York  small  grocer,  who 
nowadays  is  often  in  the  middle  of  a  block,  is  held 
in  part  by  having  his  stock  of  fruits  and  vegetables 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE          43 

handy  to  his  neighbors,  by  his  giving  credit,  by  his 
quick  delivery  of  small  purchases,  by  his  "leaders" 
and  "trading  stamps,"  in  a  word  by  making  his 
store  at  once  a  convenience  and  an  attraction  to 
the  people  in  his  block.  Withal,  he  knows  his  busi- 
ness in  every  detail,  the  last  touches  including  "the 
tricks  of  the  trade."  A  small  group  of  regular 
customers  yields  him  a  living.  As  to  the  astonish- 
ing number  of  retail  food  stores  in  New  York,  he 
who  walks  may  count.  W.  C.  Brown,  President 
of  the  New  York  Central  lines,  tells  of  finding 
"twenty  retail  shops,  where  groceries,  vegetables, 
and  meat  were  sold,  in  one  block."  The  New  York 
State  Commissioners'  Market  Committee  reports 
(page  50)  11,000  "corner  groceries,"  6,066  butcher 
shops,  and  2,682  bakeries  for  Greater  New  York; 
"one  store  to  every  250  persons"  (page  7) — the  cost 
of  the  wholesaling  being  10  per  cent  and  of  the  re- 
tailing about  33  per  cent.  In  Prof.  C.  L.  King's 
studies  of  food  prices  in  Philadelphia,  he  makes 
out  the  advance  of  the  retailer's  prices  over  the 
wholesaler's  from  30  to  100  per  cent  on  eight  com- 
modities ;  including  butter,  33  to  58  per  cent ;  pota- 
toes, 44  to  78;  eggs,  30  to  100;  tomatoes,  100. 

But,  competition?     Why,  the  query  arises,  does 
the  horde  of  retailers  not  lead  to  a  strife  that  must 


44    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

bring  the  lowest  possible  prices  with  the  largest  pos- 
sible supply?  The  answer  plainly  is  that  the  indi- 
vidual retailer  himself  is  victim  of  conditions  in- 
separable from  the  system  of  which  he  is  a  part. 
He  cannot,  of  his  will,  reduce  prices.  In  order  to 
make  a  living  he  must  meet  certain  expenses  un- 
avoidable in  his  business,  as  it  is  now  conducted. 
In  other  words,  to  make  up  his  costs  and  earnings, 
he  must  charge  his  limited  circle  of  customers  at 
least  an  irreducible  minimum  for  the  aggregate  of 
their  purchases;  he  usually  cannot  increase  his  pa- 
tronage because  fellow-tradesmen,  led  into  the  busi- 
ness through  its  apparent  profits,  and  then  bound 
down  under  the  same  circumstances  as  himself,  are 
everywhere  at  hand,  to  thrust  themselves  between 
him  and  other  possible  patrons.  "A  vicious  circle," 
is  said  of  this  situation.  "The  system  ends  in  a 
blind  alley,  tightly  closed,"  is  the  figure  others  em- 
ploy. "The  high  operating  costs  of  the  individual 
(foodstuffs)  retailer  make  his  elimination  inevi- 
table," says  the  New  York  Sta^te  Commission  Re- 
port (page  15). 

It  is  thus  seen  that  the  high  level  of  the  provision 
retailer's  prices  is  not  due  to  an  exceptional  greed 
in  his  class.  His  business,  in  other  respects  than 
perishability  of  stock,  stands  separate  from  all 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          45 

others.  Its  costs  include,  as  perhaps  one-half  his 
running  expenses,  the  daily  hauling  from  a  whole- 
sale or  jobbers'  market  and  the  delivery  of  goods, 
even  of  small  sales,  to  customers'  homes,  usually 
by  wagon.  He  must  also  reckon  with  the  difficulty 
of  taking  full  advantage  of  low  wholesale  prices, 
the  wasteful  cost  of  a  plate-glass  front  and  other 
attractions  for  custom,  trading  stamps,  and  ad- 
vancing scale  of  wages,  telephone,  and  a  rental  that 
has  a  yearly  probability  of  increase  as  he  builds  up 
a  trade.  His  landlord  is  a  ready  partner  in  his 
profits. 

To  what  percentage  of  his  receipts  must  his  cu- 
mulative burdens  amount  in  the  case  of  the  small 
New  York  grocer  doing  a  business  of,  say,  $100 
a  day?  Frederic  J.  Haskin,  in  his  "Cost  of  Liv- 
ing," says:  "The  grocer  doing  a  business  of  even 
$200  a  day  must  make  a  gross  profit  of  15  per  cent 
to  get  the  $30  a  day  which  it  probably  costs  him 
to  conduct  his  business."  Beyond  these  fixed 
charges  must  come  the  living  for  a  family  and  a 
provision  for  the  future.  In  Grand  Rapids,  the 
"Michigan  Tradesman"  says,  the  local  grocers, 
"who  have  always  been  pretty  decent,"  "figure  on 
a  profit  on  the  stuff  they  handle  of  about  50  per 
cent," 


46    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

The  inquiring  consumer,  having  ascertained  that 
the  retailer  is  the  nearest  clog  of  a  series  in  the 
channel  that  brings  foodstuffs  to  his  household,  can 
spy  out  the  stoppages  formed  by  the  more  remote 
clogs,  with  their  relative  cost.  One  arises  from  the 
chaotic  method  of  buying  and  selling  produce,  after 
transportation  from  the  producer  to  the  freight 
termini  of  the  railroads  or  to  the  piers  of  the  pro- 
vision boats.  There  being  only  a  small  area  of 
market  gardens  within  twenty  miles  of  New  York, 
the  amount  of  output  from  this  source  brought  by 
wagons  forms  a  negligible  fraction  of  the  entire 
supply.  Produce  usually  arrives  at  night  from  long 
distances  at  the  various  railroad  freight  yards  or 
down-town  West  Side  river  piers,  where,  in  the 
earlier  hours  of  the  morning,  it  is  bought  and  sold 
by  commission  men,  speculators,  wholesalers,  job- 
bers, and  lesser  dealers.  The  transactions  are  quick 
work.  Most  of  the  goods  is  consigned  by  the  send- 
ers to  commission  men,  of  whom  there  are  none 
too  few.  These  turn  much  of  it  over  to  jobbers, 
or  wholesalers,  from  whom  it  is  bought  by  retail- 
ers, either  on  the  spot  or  at  the  commission  men's 
or  wholesalers'  warehouses,  or  at  the  down-town 
West  Side  or  Brooklyn  wholesale  market-places  or 
at  the  jobbers'  markets.  After  arrival  in  the  city, 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          47 

the  hauling  of  the  goods  to  and  fro  and  back  and 
forth,  from  one  set  of  dealers  to  another,  from 
one  locality  to  another,  is  part  of  the  waste  in  a 
planless  development. 

Subdivisions  of  the  commission  men,  wholesalers, 
and  jobbers  dealing  in  separate  lines  of  foodstuffs 
in  New  York  give  rise  to  various  associations  and 
exchanges.  It  is  not  the  purpose  at  this  point  to 
particularize  the  peculiar  functions  performed  by 
each  of  these  subdivisions.  Just  when,  in  their 
dealings,  the  men  composing  them  are  legitimate 
dealers  in  goods  held  in  their  possession  or  venture- 
some speculators  in  the  goods  coming  in  on  the 
market,  or  to  arrive  in  the  future,  is  a  nettlesome 
point  fought  over  by  the  dealers  on  one  side  and 
producers  on  the  other. 

What  may  happen  to  farmers'  consignments  to 
commission  dealers  is  thus  described  by  Charles  R. 
White,  of  Ontario  County,  N.  Y.,  writing  in  the 
"Rural  New  Yorker,"  March  25,  1911: 

"A  car  of  very  fancy  Spitzenberg  apples  was 
shipped  to  a  well-known  commission  house,  A.  A 
sold  the  apples  at  the  car  to  B  for  $4.  B  sold  them 
back  to  A  for  $6.  A  took  them  to  his  store  and 
jobbed  them  out  at  $7.50.  A  made  returns  to  the 
shipper  of  $4,  less  freight  and  10  per  cent  commis- 
sion, or  $3.36,  45  per  cent  of  the  jobbing  price.  In 


48    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

this  case  the  fruit  must  have  retailed  for  a  high 
price,  and  it  is  fair  to  assume  the  grower  got  very 
much  less  than  35  per  cent  of  the  consumer's  dol- 
lar. The  practice  cited  here  is  a  very  common 


one." 


This  case,  with  a  number  of  others,  is  cited  by 
Mr.  White  to  show  the  weakness  and  deceits  of  the 
commission  system  of  marketing.  His  articles,  of 
which  he  wrote  a  series,  could  not  be  given  promi- 
nence in  the  reputable  newspaper  which  published 
them  unless  they  were  based  on  circumstances  rec- 
ognized as  not  unusual  in  the  business  and  pos- 
sessed of  a  general  significance  to  farmers  and  con- 
sumers. It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  mem- 
bers of  a  commission  apfpointed  by  a  State  admin- 
istration would  without  due  caution  recognize 
charges  against  an  entire  body  of  business  men,  yet 
the  State  Commission  Market  Committee  says 
(page  6)  :  "There  is  much  evidence  to  show  that 
commission  men  and  dealers  in  farm  products  de- 
lay settlements  with  shippers,  report  shipments  in 
bad  condition  without  proof  of  same,  that  goods 
are  damaged  in  transit,  fail  to  follow  instructions 
of  shippers  as  to  disposition  of  goods,  etc.  Legis- 
lation to  remedy  these  alleged  malpractices  is  de- 
sirable/' In  an  address  at  a  meeting  of  the  State 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE          49 

Agricultural  Society,  Albany,  January  13,  1913, 
Seth  Low  said:  "The  wholesale  market  is  open  to 
the  farmer  only  upon  terms  which  place  him  wholly 
at  the  mercy  of  commission  men.  I  am  far  from 
wishing  to  imply  that  there  are  no  honest  commis- 
sion merchants;  but  every  farmer  in  the  State 
knows  that  there  are  some  dishonest  commission 
merchants ;  and  we  all  know  that,  as  things  are  now, 
we  are,  practically,  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  the 
man  to  whom  we  consign."  Both  Mr.  White  and 
Mr.  Low  were  making  a  plea  for  co-operative  sell- 
ing by  producers,  who  have  a  touching  interest  in 
studying  the  clogs  in  the  channel  between  them 
and  the  city  consumers.  The  latter  might  well 
join  the  producers  in  asking:  "Why  pay  the  suc- 
cessive percentages  of  profits  to  the  several  cate- 
gories, or  rings,  of  handlers  and  detainers  of  food- 
stuffs, each  of  whom,  down  to  the  retailer,  may 
be  in  part  business  man,  in  part  speculator?" 

H.  B.  Fullerton,  Director  of  Agricultural  De- 
velopment, Long  Island  Railroad  Company,  writes 
me,  January  27,  1912 :  "In  Greater  New  York  the 
supposed  markets  are  simply  assembly  places  for 
a  crowd  of  commission  men."  Ezra  A.  Tuttle, 
writing  of  the  New  York  markets  in  a  farmers' 
paper,  says  "they  have  to  do  with  commission  men, 


50    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

jobbers  and  middlemen  generally."  The  farmers 
are  asking  in  their  newspaper  organs  such  pertinent 
questions  as  these:  What  is  the  true  office  of  the 
cold  storage  warehouse?  Why  the  army  of  com- 
mission men,  wholesalers,  jobbers,  members  of  ex- 
changes, etc.?  What  influence,  for  example,  is 
brought  to  play  on  prices  by  the  131  provision  men 
and  the  374  receivers  and  shippers  among  the 
3,000  members  of  the  New  York  Produce  Ex- 
change? How  far  does  their  "regulating  the 
supply"  go  toward  suppressing  the  supply?  The 
"Long  Island  Agronomist"  gives  as  its  opinion: 
"City  food  prices  of  the  present  day  are  governed 
not  one  whit  by  supply  and  demand,  but  entirely 
by  the  barriers  existing  in  cities  between  producer 
and  consumer."  Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  writing  in 
the  "Outlook,"  puts  the  general  case  in  moderate 
words:  "Where  .  .  .the  town  dominates  the 
country,  the  machinery  of  distribution  is  owned  by 
the  business  men  of  the  towns  and  is  worked  by 
them  in  their  own  interests." 

Jointly,  the  commission  men,  wholesalers,  job- 
bers, and  exchange  members  have  direct  command 
of  the  trunk  channels  through  which  New  York 
obtains  from  the  producers  its  perishable  food  sup- 
ply. They  can  discourage  farmers'  shipments  in 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          51 

the  full  fruit  and  vegetable  seasons.  They  can  for 
long  periods  hold  back  in  cold  storage  the  arrivals 
of  eggs,  butter,  cheese,  dressed  poultry  and  certain 
fruits.  Among  them  they  can  render  price  quota- 
tions unreliable.  Jointly,  as  we  have  seen,  retail- 
ers, in  a  different  class  from  the  handlers  in  bulk, 
have  no  interest  in  buying  more  stock  than  to  meet 
the  ascertained  wants  of  their  respective  little 
squads  of  customers.  They  are  masters  of  the  sub- 
sidiary channels  of  supply.  Each  retailer  knows 
how  much  his  weekly  cash  receipts  must  be  to  let 
him  live,  and  he  buys  as  sparingly  as  he  can  and 
through  a  common  understanding  with  other 
retailers  makes  his  selling  prices  accordingly.  As 
the  "Fruitman's  Guide"  says  of  grapefruit  when 
sold  by  the  restaurant  men:  "They  start  them  at 
the  top  notch  at  the  beginning  of  the  season,  and 
they  keep  them  at  the  top  notch  all  through."  The 
State  Commission's  Market  Committee  says  (page 
68)  :  "It  seems  the  retail  tradesmen  take  the  atti- 
tude that  the  public  have  to  eat  about  so  much,  and 
they  are  not  disposed  to  lower  prices  when  the  mar- 
ket is  glutted,  even  though  they  buy  at  a  reduction." 
A  leading  commission  man  down-town  exclaimed 
while  I  was  interviewing  him :  "The  retailers  up 
where  I  live  must  have  some  sort  of  an  understand- 


52    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

ing  when  they  all  ask  twenty  cents  for  strawber- 
ries that  I  sell  them  for  six."  "Monopoly  in  rates," 
sums  up  Frederick  Charles  Hicks,  University  of 
Cincinnati,  in  his  work,  "Competitive  and  Monop- 
oly Price,"  arises  from  "the  existence  of  substantial 
unity  of  action  on  the  part  of  the  persons  engaged 
in  the  business." 

New  York's  channels  of  food  flow  are  dammed 
up  through  the  interests  of  an  inefficient  local  mode 
of  distribution  to  the  serious  detriment  of  the 
masses.  The  consumer,  paying  45  to  60  per  cent 
of  his  earnings  for  food  for  his  family,  and  being 
officially  informed  that  respectively  10  per  cent  and 
33  per  cent  advances  in  price  of  country  produce 
are  made  here  in  New  York  by  wholesaler  and  re- 
tailer, must  logically  take  his  first  steps  in  econom- 
ical buying  through  cutting  those  profits  by  any 
legitimate  means  possible.  Such  means  are  at  the 
command  of  the  masses,  without  cost  to  them  or 
to  the  authorities  more  than  the  exertion  of  enforc- 
ing common  civic  rights. 


IV.     A  PUBLIC  OUTLET— CLOSED  BY  THE 
AUTHORITIES. 

THE  civic  function  voluntarily  performed  by  the 
"pushcart  men,"  as  the  genus  is  called  in  New 
York,  is  a  noteworthy  development  of  recent  years 
in  many  cities  of  Europe  and  America.  By  the 
wealthier  classes  disregarded,  save  as  road  obstacles 
to  pleasure  vehicles,  and  by  the  police  often  treated 
as  highway  nuisances,  these  humblest  representa- 
tives of  trade,  unless  suppressed,  testify  by  their 
continued  presence  and  increasing  numbers  to  the 
fact  that  they  meet  a  constant  and  quite  general 
public  want.  Speaking  of  Grand  Rapids,  the 
"Michigan  Tradesman"  says:  "A  few  years  ago 
grocers  had  practically  all  the  fruit  and  vegetable 
business,  but  the  hucksters  have  multiplied  prodig- 
iously, and  today  they  have  the  bulk  of  this  busi- 
ness, especially  during  the  summer  months."  Of 
Berlin  it  is  said  ("Municipal  Markets  in  Europe," 
page  41):  "The  competition  of  the  peddlers  be- 
came so  strong  that  a  police  ordinance  of  March  18, 
1898,  forbade  the  peddling  of  market  wares  in  those 

53 


54    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

streets  surrounding  the  market  halls. "  Taking 
these  typical  examples,  far  and  near,  we  have  evi- 
dence that  handcart  vendors  are  enterprising  and 
that,  for  both  dealer  and  consumer,  their  trucking 
must  pay. 

The  methods  of  all  trade  have  in  the  last  few 
decades  been  revolutionized.  Regarding  the  trans- 
port of  food  and  its  conservation  for  the  final  mar- 
ket, our  attention  is  usually  called  to  the  striking 
changes  effected  by  the  improved  facilities  of  the 
railroads,  by  refrigeration  in  cars  and  warehouses, 
by  the  growth  of  the  "packing  houses."  But  that 
the  methods  of  retailing  food — the  final  stage  of 
its  organized  distribution — are  changing  as  speed- 
ily as  circumstances  in  various  communities  permit 
has  received  much  less  notice.  The  aid  of  the 
pushcart  man  to  the  thrifty  householder,  for  one 
thing,  has  had  little  serious  study.  Yet  the  push- 
cart man  is  here,  a  modern  institution,  in  his  num- 
bers and  his  variety  of  stock  if  not  in  his  occupa- 
tion. He  has  been  encouraged  to  multiply  by  the 
substitution  of  smooth  pavements  for  the  old-time 
cobble-  or  stone-block,  by  the  exorbitant  charges  of 
storekeepers,  by  the  adaptability  of  his  wares  to 
the  needs  of  small  buyers,  and  by  the  possibilities 
of  his  successful  competition  through  low  expenses. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  55 

"Increase  to  cost  by  the  use  of  the  pushcart  sys- 
tem," says  the  New  York  State  Commission  Mar- 
ket Committee's  Report  (page  14),  "is  lower  than 
for  any  other  type  of  food-distributing  agency." 
"Costermonger"  in  London,  "gemiise  handler"  in 
Berlin,  "venditore  delle  vie"  in  Milan,  "marchand 
des  quatre  saisons"  in  Paris,  the  pushcart  man  is  at 
hand  in  the  streets  of  every  city  wherever  a  far- 
thing is  to  be  gained — unless  he  is  suppressed  by 
the  police. 

In  New  York,  the  familiar  newspaper  cartoon 
depicting  a  miserably  poor  and  dejected  foreigner 
"moved  on"  by  a  policeman  flourishing  his  club 
well  describes  the  status  both  of  the  vendor  and  of 
the  law  which  vexes  him.  It  is  a  law  of  personal 
discretion,  now  exercised  by  the  man  with  the  club 
and  again  by  the  city  magistrate,  but  chiefly  by 
"the  man  highest  up."  The  police  patrolman,  the 
police  precinct  captain,  the  police  justice  are  all  co- 
sufferers  with  the  vendors  from  this  uncertainty. 
The  city  ordinances  embody  the  phraseology  of 
pushcart  regulations,  dead  law  mostly.  By  these, 
first,  street  vendors  must  be  licensed.  A  very  large 
percentage  of  New  York's  pushcart  men  are  usual- 
ly without  licenses — "fully  a  half,"  one  high  po- 
lice official  told  me  a  year  ago;  "fully  three- 


56    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

fourths,"  others  have  testified,  and  Francis  H.  Oli- 
ver, former  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Licenses,  said 
last  year  that,  while  the  city  charter  limits  the 
number  of  licenses  to  4,000  there  were  then  at  least 
10,000  peddlers  working  without  a  license.  And 
by  the  same  code  no  vendor  may  remain  in  one 
spot  more  than  thirty  minutes,  while,  as  a  fact, 
hundreds  hold  their  accustomed  places  every  day 
all  day  long.  Further,  the  sanitary  code  requires 
certain  foods  to  be  glass-covered,  stipulates  fines  for 
throwing  fruitskins  and  the  like  on  the  sidewalks, 
and  wholly  forbids  the  erection  of  street  stands. 
The  code  has  been  commonly  ignored,  because  un- 
suited  to  the  time,  contrary  to  the  popular  will, 
and  repugnant  to  the  common  sense  of  the  author- 
ities. The  police  in  patroling  are  harried  by  the 
anarchy  of  the  situation  quite  as  much  as  the  ped- 
dlers. "Why  strike  me?"  cried  a  peddler  to  a  po- 
lice captain  who  poked  him  in  the  ribs  while  order- 
ing him  to  move  on.  "I've  told  him  a  dozen  times 
to  keep  away  from  this  corner,"  replied  the  cap- 
tain to  a  citizen  making  the  same  inquiry,  but  dis- 
daining to  notice  the  victim  of  the  club,  "yet  he  is 
able  somehow  to  come  back  in  spite  of  the  law." 
Even  the  consumers  who  wish  to  patronize  these 
vendors  in  most  parts  of  the  city  are  made  to  feel 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          57 

like  misdemeanants,  while  in  a  few  districts  local 
public  opinion  has  so  fully  prevailed  that  the  ven- 
dors have  established  permanent  markets  right  in 
the  streets. 

The  extra-legal  status  quo  in  the  war  over  the 
pushcart  problem  which  was  maintained  until  late 
in  the  summer  of  1912  had  apparently  been  reached 
partly  through  the  influence  exerted  by  the  fellow 
"colonists"  of  different  groups  of  vendors  on  the 
Board  of  Aldermen,  partly  through  the  toleration 
of  the  higher  police  officials  while  awaiting  a  solu- 
tion by  means  of  laws  to  come  that  should  be  prac- 
tically operative,  and  not  infrequently  through  an 
understanding  between  the  peddlers  or  their  "pa- 
droni" and  the  landlords  or  shopkeepers  who,  for 
a  consideration,  made  no  complaint  if  the  right 
pushcarts  stood  all  day  in  front  of  their  premises. 

Two  official  municipal  investigations  of  the  gen- 
eral pushcart  question  were  made  in  New  York  in 
recent  years,  previous  to  those  of  the  last  year. 
The  first,  in  1903,  was  under  the  direction  of 
James  B.  Reynolds,  Secretary  to  Mayor  Low,  deal- 
ing with  the  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Licenses.  The 
second  was  under  Mayor  McClellan,  made  by  a 
Commission  of  which  Lawrence  Veiller  was  Chair- 
man, its  report  being  printed  in  September,  1906. 


58     MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

Secretary  Reynolds'  report  had  this  paragraph : 

"Formerly,  knowing  that  they  were  violating  all 
the  ordinances,  the  peddlers  felt  a  sense  of  insecur- 
ity and  found  themselves  absolutely  in  the  power 
of  any  rough  policeman  who  might  take  offense  or 
entertain  a  grudge  against  a  particular  vendor.  It 
was  also  the  fertile  source  of  a  well-organized  sys- 
tem of  blackmail  carried  on  by  certain  police  offi- 
cers, with  the  probable  co-operation  and  connivance 
of  some  representatives  of  the  peddlers.  Further- 
more, there  arose  a  system  of  collection  of  rentals 
by  the  shopkeepers  in  front  of  whose  stores  push- 
carts were  placed.  If  the  rental  was  not  paid,  the 
shopkeeper  would  immediately  complain  to  the  po- 
lice that  the  peddler  was  a  nuisance,  an  objection 
not  repeated  when  the  next  peddler  took  his  stand 
in  front  of  the  store  and  paid  the  unlawful  rental." 

Quoting  the  foregoing  paragraph,  Mayor  Mc- 
Clellan's  Commission  said: 

"The  Commission  has  no  information  with  re- 
gard to  either  of  these  charges.  It  has  been  a  mat- 
ter of  public  knowledge  for  some  time  that  among 
unscrupulous  members  of  the  police  force  there  has 
been  carried  on  a  system  of  petty  blackmail  of 
these  peddlers,  the  peddlers  having  been  'shaken 
down'  at  stated  intervals  by  the  policemen  on  the 
post.  In  a  similar  way  the  system  of  compelling 
the  peddlers  to  pay  tribute  to  the  storekeeper  in 
front  of  whose  place  of  business  the  individual  ped- 
dler might  stand  has  been  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge  for  some  years  past.  The  Commission 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          59 

has  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  attempt  to  obtain 
evidence  with  regard  to  either  of  these  charges. 
The  peddlers  themselves  have  been  unanimous  in 
admitting  their  truth." 

In  these  two  excerpts  there  is,  if  nothing  more, 
conclusive  evidence  of  the  chaotic  conditions  which 
the  two  investigations  brought  to  light  and  which 
in  some  phases  prevail  now.  Every  year  thousands 
of  arrests  of  street  vendors  have  been  made  for 
peddling  unlicensed,  "standing  at  the  curb,"  sani- 
tary violations,  invading  restricted  streets,  etc.  The 
alleged  causes  of  most  of  these  arrests  form  an  in- 
dictment of  the  city's  government.  Why,  for  ex- 
ample, should  it  be  possible  for  a  vendor  to  go  out 
on  the  streets  without  a  license  despite  the  law,  and 
why  should  he  not  stand  at  the  curb  when  in  no 
one's  way?  "It  is  to  be  feared,"  said  the  McClellan 
Commission,  "that  in  many  cases  the  policemen  ar- 
rested the  man  and  determined  upon  the  charge 
afterward." 

Speaking  of  the  situation  in  1912,  Mr.  Oliver 
says  that  only  a  small  percentage  of  the  10,000 
unlicensed  peddlers  were  arrested,  but  those  that 
were  "appeased  the  outraged  law  by  paying  a  fine, 
and  then  they  got  back  to  work." 

The    McClellan    Commission's    findings    (1906) 


60    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

also  included  these  points :  A  system  of  barter  and 
sale  in  city  peddling  licenses,  existing  to  a  large  ex- 
tent. The  licenses  were  controlled  by  rich  "pa- 
droni" who  employed  poor  men  to  peddle  for  them. 
With  the  system  of  petty  blackmail  by  the  police 
was  a  "selling  of  indulgences."  The  existing  ordi- 
nances were  generally  violated.  In  July,  1912, 
Morris  D.  Waldman,  General  Manager  United  He- 
brew Societies,  told  the  newspapers  that  the  issuing 
of  peddlers'  licenses  had  become  part  of  the  per- 
quisites of  professional  politicians.  The  system 
still  continued. of  granting  many  licenses  to  one 
man,  who  employed  peddlers  to  hawk  his  wares. 

Could  any  duty  of  municipal  administration  be 
more  disgracefully  conducted?  Regarded  as  a  line 
of  business,  the  wonder  is  that  street  peddling 
could  live  through  its  discouragements.  Yet  the 
McClellan  Commission  reported:  "There  is  no 
danger  to  the  community  from  the  food  supplies 
sold  on  pushcarts;  the  quality  of  the  food  is  gen- 
erally as  good  as,  and  often  better  than,  that  sold 
in  neighboring  stores."  In  Manhattan,  this  Com- 
mission's investigators  found  pushcart  food  "good" 
in  71  per  cent  of  1,952  cases,  "fair"  in  23  per  cent, 
"bad"  in  i  per  cent,  and  "injurious  to  health"  in 
less  than  one-half  of  i  per  cent.  The  Commission's 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          61 

census  of  pushcart  peddlers  resulted  in  finding  "be- 
tween 4,000  and  5,000  plying  their  trade  in  the 
streets  of  New  York."  Their  earnings  averaged 
"from  $12  to  $15  a  week."  The  percentage  sell- 
ing food  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn  was  iden- 
tical— 69. 

Several  representatives  of  the  pushcart  men  made 
extraordinary  claims  as  to  the  cheapness  of  the 
produce  sold  from  the  carts.  "A  great  many  poor 
people  of  the  East  Side  buy  all  their  things  from 
the  pushcarts,"  said  one  witness,  "because  it  is 
much  cheaper."  If  deprived  of  this  source  of  sup- 
ply, "it  would  raise  their  cost  of  living  from  two 
to  three  dollars  a  week."  In  the  course  of  my  own 
inquiries  on  the  lower  East  Side  I  learned  that 
peddlers  have  their  regular  customers  and  that  in 
entire  neighborhoods  they  supply  the  larger  propor- 
tion of  the  foodstuffs  consumed.  Many  of  the  ped- 
dlers, a  clothing-trade  union  organizer  said,  are 
worn-out  factory  hands,  who  sell  to  their  old  shop- 
mates.  In  the  belief  of  the  McClellan  Commis- 
sion :  "Not  only  would  the  peddlers  and  their  fam- 
ilies have  been  seriously  affected  by  any  radical 
change,  but  the  great  mass  of  the  tenement-house 
population  itself  had  been  accustomed  to  the  prices 
that  prevail  on  the  pushcarts,  and  any  change  in 


62          MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

reducing  the  number  of  these  peddlers  would  have 
brought  serious  consequences  to  the  great  mass  of 
the  poorer  people  of  this  city."  The  agitation  of 
the  question  last  year  brought  out  a  general  East 
Side  sentiment  against  any  attempt  to  suppress  the 
pushcart  traffic. 

Custom,  disobeying  the  ordinances,  has  given 
rise  in  a  number  of  localities  in  the  city  to  local 
open-air  markets,  especially  on  the  evenings  of  the 
pay-days  of  the  wage-workers  or  on  the  religious 
rest-days  of  the  neighboring  population.  Pushcart 
floaters  then  become  standkeepers.  Of  this  descrip- 
tion are  "Paddy's  Market,"  extending  along  Ninth 
avenue  for  a  number  of  blocks  south  of  Forty-sec- 
ond street,  liveliest  on  Saturday  evenings;  the  mar- 
ket at  the  foot  of  Catharine  street,  on  Sunday 
morning,  which  has  existed  for  years,  and  other 
street  markets,  which  are  quite  permanent.  In  the 
East  Side  streets  certain  days  bring  their  special- 
ties in  food  products.  Saturday  night  long  wit- 
nessed a  tacit  leave  granted  by  the  police  to  the 
vendors  accustomed  to  assemble  at  a  number  of 
other  points  up  town  and  down  where  customers 
expected  to  find  them. 

Now,  if  the  New  York  street  vendor,  while 
treated  as  an  outlaw,  has  thus  succeeded  in  giving 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  63 

a  large  body  of  consumers  good  and  cheap  food, 
what  might  he  not  do  for  a  much  greater  mass  of 
people  were  he  recognized  as  a  legitimate  agent  in 
fulfilling  a  public  need?  If  market  places  have 
sprung  up  haphazard  in  the  city,  with  only  local 
police  tolerance  as  a  protection,  what  benefits  might 
not  they  bring  were  the  city  officially  to  recognize 
their  function  and  systematize  their  regulation?  In 
the  spring  of  1912  I  put  these  questions  to  the  heads 
of  several  city  departments  and  to  leading  com- 
mission men  and  other  prominent  dealers  in  food 
supplies. 

The  commission  men  doing  business  with  the 
country  forwarders  of  products  by  boat  and  rail 
had  no  complaint  against  the  pushcart  vendors  as 
buyers  except  that  they  took  time  in  paying  cash 
in  the  busy  hours  of  daybreak  during  the  whole- 
sale transactions.  Ordinarily  trade  is  then  on  check 
or  credit — more  than  90  per  cent  of  it.  Collections 
take  place  later  through  agents  of  the  commission 
men's  associations.  But  the  pushcart  men,  having 
no  commercial  standing,  usually  pay  on  the  spot. 
Some,  however,  buy  in  bulk  quantities  co-opera- 
tively, both  of  the  commission  men  and  at  the 
wholesale  fruit  auctions.  Commission  officials 
thought  that  were  the  street  peddlers  better  capable 


64     MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

of  looking  after  their  own  interests  it  would  be  a 
benefit  to  the  community.  Many  of  them  are  handi- 
capped by  their  extreme  poverty,  their  inability  to 
speak  English,  their  ignorance  of  the  city  outside 
their  own  national  "colonies,"  their  slavish  fear  of 
the  police,  their  dependence  on  their  backers  or  em- 
ployers, their  uncleanliness,  and  their  lack  of  ability 
to  push  sales  among  the  American  public. 

The  heads  of  the  city  departments  without  ex- 
ception favored  a  regulated  pushcart  system,  not  so 
much  in  the  streets  as  in  special  markets.  Police 
Commissioner  Waldo's  methods  would  include  li- 
censing peddlers,  furnishing  them  with  identifica- 
tion certificates,  and  reducing  their  numbers,  espe- 
cially in  certain  neighborhoods.  He  was  an  advo- 
cate of  outdoor  markets,  letting  the  standkeepers 
spread  their  own  weather  awnings.  In  some  in- 
stances, he  thought,  steel  buildings,  three  stories 
high,  might  be  built,  having  spaces  for  handcart 
men,  as  well  as  stallkeepers.  Park  Commissioner 
Stover,  a  jealous  guardian  of  public  space  for  park 
purposes,  could  see  that  parts  of  downtown  paved 
parks  and  the  open  spaces  bordering  on  them  or 
the  city  squares  could  be  used  for  temporary  mar- 
kets. He  was  familiar  with  similar  methods 
abroad,  carried  on  even  in  the  principal  streets  of 


MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE          65 

important  cities,  the  hours  of  marketing  ending  at 
noon  or  earlier,  the  spaces,  cleaned  up,  at  once  pass- 
ing to  other  public  uses.  Health  Commissioner 
Lederle  said  that  the  share  of  the  work  of  his  de- 
partment in  administering  markets,  that  of  inspec- 
tion, would  be  a  matter  of  the  city  having  enough 
health  agents.  He  believed  the  character  of  the 
pushcart  men  would  be  improved  with  just  regula- 
tion. All  the  authorities  I  interviewed  looked  for- 
ward to  changes  in  the  system,  and  in  general  were 
sympathetic  in  considering  proposals  for  a  better 
control  of  the  vendors,  though  one  or  two  wanted 
them  driven  from  the  streets.  Several  police  offi- 
cials frankly  expressed  their  wish  that  the  ordi- 
nances might  be  so  amended  as  to  win  the  uniform 
support  of  police  and  magistrates.  Patrolmen, 
from  their  observations,  had  no  doubt  of  the  value 
of  street  vendors  in  reducing  prices.  One  officer 
recalled  that  when,  years  ago,  the  cart  men  were 
driven  from  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  terminus  in  Park 
Row  the  neighboring  standkeepers  doubled  their 
prices.  Another  said  that  where  the  vendors  them- 
selves arranged  their  order  in  the  streets  they  gave 
little  trouble  to  the  police.  Another  spoke  of  the 
Broad  street  lunch-cart  men,  to  whom  the  local 
police  gave  a  square  deal  by  assigning  them  their 


66    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

order,  keeping  them  in  line  accordingly,  and  every 
day  sending  the  one  from  the  head  of  the  line  to 
the  other  end.  After  many  interviews  with  New 
York  policemen,  I  was  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
independent  judgment  of  aknost  any  patrolman  was 
equal  to  regulating  the  possible  pushcart  traffic  on 
his  post,  bringing  it  up  to  the  requirements  of  law- 
ful order,  fair  play,  sanitary  rules,  and  the  least 
interference  with  other  street  vehicles.  To  the  com- 
munity the  task  of  regulating  the  policeman's  in- 
tegrity. On  the  whole,  however,  the  official  atti- 
tude toward  the  pushcart  question  was  not  dictated 
by  any  settled  principle  relating  to  the  rights  of  the 
consumer. 

But  the  force  of  authority  has  wholly  changed 
the  pushcart  situation  since  the  spring  of  1912.  It 
is  interesting  to  note  the  events  terminating  in  the 
new  situation.  On  July  9,  1912,  the  Board  of 
Aldermen  appointed  a  committee  made  up  of  seven 
of  its  members  to  investigate  the  subject  of  push- 
carts and  public  markets.  On  December  18,  1912, 
the  Mayor  appointed  a  Special  Commission  of  five 
citizens  "to  examine  into  the  matter  of  pushcarts 
in  the  city,  and  of  their  accommodation  under  shel- 
ter, in  place  of  being  exposed  to  the  weather  in  the 
streets,  and  being  an  obstruction  in  the  streets." 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  67 

On  March  26,  1913,  the  Mayor's  Commission  re- 
ported to  him,  and  on  April  18  the  Mayor  trans- 
mitted the  report  to  the  Aldermen.  On  April  22 
the  Aldermanic  Committee  handed  in  its  report. 
The  two  reports  challenge  attention  by  their  simi- 
larities in  statement,  arrangement,  findings  and 
phraseology.  The  Mayor  mentioned  that  "these 
two  reports  are  very  much  in  harmony."  Both 
recommended  that  the  pushcart  peddlers  be  taken 
off  the  streets  and  put  in  shelters  under  the  East 
River  bridge  and  in  the  small  parks,  the  Aldermanic 
Committee  in  a  supplementary  report  agreeing  to 
the  recommendations  of  the  Mayor's  Commission 
regarding  several  places  not  named  in  their  own 
first  report.  The  "shelters,"  already  termed  "mar- 
kets" in  the  reports,  are  to  be,  with  one  exception, 
down  town  on  the  East  Side.  The  Mayor  in  his 
letter  calculated  that  the  pushcarts  in  the  three  po- 
lice precincts  in  which  the  worst  congestion  exists 
could  be  housed  at  an  expense  of  about  $150,000. 
The  Mayor's  Commission  submitted  a  design  for 
a  "sheltered  space,"  to  serve  as  a  type  for  "any  part 
of  the  city  where  pushcart  peddling  prevails" ;  esti- 
mated cost  of  each  shelter,  $37,040.  The  net 
"profit"  from  the  operation  of  300  "stalls"  in  the 


68    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

two  shelters  and  2,000  spaces  under  the  bridges  was 
to  be  $40,500  a  year! 

In  calculating  the  receipts  the  Commission  em- 
ployed this  significant  language :  "Peddlers  pay  at 
the  rate  of  $30  per  annum  for  the  hire  of  push- 
carts, and  if  shelter  stalls  were  rented  at  the  same 
rate  the  results  would  be" — the  estimate  as  given, 
$40,500.  That  is,  the  pushcart  peddlers  are  to  be- 
come stallholders  in  permanent  markets,  not  using 
pushcarts  to  haul  their  stock,  and  not  delivering 
sales  to  the  houses  of  customers.  The  Aldermanic 
Committee  says  it  sought  to  place  "the  pushcart 
peddler  in  a  market  where  he  would  have  a  per- 
manent stand."  The  Board  of  Aldermen  passed 
an  ordinance  in  conformity  with  its  Committee's 
report.  This  action  is  but  "flying  in  the  face  of 
experience."  It  is  but  reproducing  the  commercial 
conditions  of  the  old-time  sellers  in  the  housed  mar- 
kets of  New  York's  dead  district  system. 

Will  purchasers  walk  blocks  to  buy  at  housed 
market  stalls?  What  are  the  circumstances  essen- 
tial to  the  success  of  the  pushcart  business?  What 
will  the  masses  lose  through  the  extinction  of  the 
ambulant  pushcart  man?  These  and  cognate  ques- 
tions have  for  their  reply  the  facts  of  procedure 
and  consequence  in  the  subsequent  chapters  on  the 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE          69 

pushcart  in  Berlin,  Paris,  and  London.  But  the 
reply  may  at  this  point  be  also  suggested  in  asking : 
What  would  be  the  effect  on  the  circulation  of  the 
New  York  newspapers  if  the  news  vendors — am- 
bulant and  stationary — were  driven  from  the  side- 
walks and  "concentrated"  about  the  publication 
offices?  Plainly,  what  customers  cannot  readily 
reach  they  often  do  not  buy,  and  the  prices  of  the 
uncontrolled  hotel  stands  and  railway  stations 
would  tend  to  spread  to  newsdealers'  shops. 

It  is  well  for  a  fair  discussion  of  the  subject  that 
both  the  Mayor's  Commission  and  the  Aldermanic 
Committee  speak  in  their  reports  of  the  quality  of 
the  stock  sold  by  the  pushcart  peddlers.  The  Com- 
mission says :  "It  has  been  found  that  the  food- 
stuffs sold  by  the  peddlers  is  nearly  uniformly 
wholesome.  These  and  other  commodities  are  sold 
at  a  considerably  less  cost  than  obtained  in  stores." 
The  Committee  reports :  "The  quality  of  food  and 
merchandise  sold  from  these  pushcarts  is  in  the 
main  of  as  good  a  quality  (sic)  as  can  be  bought 
anywhere  else  in  the  city,  and  much  cheaper."  True? 
Then,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  why  not  let  the 
peddlers  push  their  carts  wherever  they  can  find 
customers,  so  long  as  they  do  not  seriously  inter- 
fere with  more  important  forms  of  street  traffic? 


70    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

In  making  out  their  case  against  the  pushcart 
men  in  the  streets,  the  Mayor's  Commission  recites : 
"Pushcarts  have  multiplied  to  serious  proportions  in 
numbers.  In  certain  localities  they  occupy  so  much 
space  on  the  streets  that  they  form  congestion  on 
the  highway  (sic)  and  are  a  menace  to  the  safety  of 
citizens."  True  again.  Last  fall  they  were  driven 
by  the  police  from  many  streets  up  town  and  down 
town,  especially  the  West  Side,  and  concentrated 
mainly  in  the  Jewish  and  Italian  districts  of  the 
lower  East  Side.  Official  force  was  employed  de- 
liberately in  each  step  that  tended  to  convert  the 
ambulant  pushcart  peddler  into  a  stalled  market 
dealer.  The  authority  wielding  the  supreme  power 
in  the  matter  has  during  the  last  year  developed  a 
policy  destructive  of  the  pushcart's  social  benefits 
and  of  the  principle  of  equal  rights  in  the  highways. 
However,  the  lameness  and  inconsistency  of  the 
policy  became  apparent  in  June,  when  the  Aldermen 
voted  to  oppose  the  necessary  appropriation  for  the 
"shelter"  markets.  The  pushcart  people  are  in  "con- 
centrado"  camps,  cut  off  equally  from  free  streets 
and  legal  market-places.* 


*  Later,  last  week  in  August:  Pushcarts  are  reappearing 
in  districts  recently  closed  to  them ;  significant  of  the  election 
coming  in  November. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  71 

The  main  principle  overlooked  in  New  York  in 
official  attempts  to  solve  the  pushcart  problem  is  the 
rights  of  the  consumers.  It  may  be  confidently  as- 
serted that  every  set  of  regulations  or  of  proposi- 
tions which  ignore  the  rights  of  consumers,  as  well 
as  a  pressing  need  of  the  masses,  will  in  time  be  cir- 
cumvented by  the  peddlers,  violated  by  purchasers, 
and  to  a  greater  or  lesser  extent  be  unen forced  by 
the  lesser  authorities.  General  convenience  and  the 
"higher  law"  of  statute-killing  public  opinion — 
which  effects  much  good  in  code-ridden  New  York 
— customarily  prevail. 

What  are  the  chief  needs  of  the  peddlers'  patrons 
in  buying,  and  what  are  the  basic  principles  of  the 
law  relating  to  consumers  with  respect  to  street 
selling? 

The  representative  of  the  Italian  Pushcart  Ped- 
dlers' Association  told  the  McClellan  Commission: 
"The  patrons  of  the  peddlers  buy  from  them  be- 
cause their  merchandise  is  handy,  everywhere."  He 
might  have  added,  "to  the  extent  permitted  by  the 
police."  The  tenement-house  mother  who  can  but 
for  a  short  time  leave  her  family  of  small  children 
alone  at  home,  the  down-town  messenger  boy  or  the 
typewriter  girl,  the  garment-worker  factory  hand 
in  the  Broadway  or  Fifth  avenue  district,  all  have 


72    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

a  right  to  be  served  by  "handy"  street-peddlers, 
when  buying  either  household  supplies  or  the  mid- 
day lunch. 

This  right  is  founded  on  equality  in  the  use  of 
the  highways.  In  that  use  all  citizens  are  com- 
munists and  cannot  be  otherwise.  Inhibition  of  use 
of  the  highways,  or  of  having  them  used,  in  sup- 
plying each  citizen's  needs,  can  justly  arise  only  in 
cases  of  nuisance,  or  of  protecting  the  health  of 
the  community,  or  of  similar  regard  for  the  general 
as  imperatively  above  the  individual  welfare. 

In  the  crude  attempts  at  adjusting  the  rights  of 
the  various  parties  in  interest  in  the  use  of  New 
York's  streets  for  peddling,  the  last  class  to  be  con- 
sidered by  investigators  or  lawmakers  have  been  the 
consumers.  They  outnumber  the  peddlers,  the 
shopkeepers,  the  drivers  of  vehicles,  each  class,  hun- 
dreds to  one,  yet  they  are  expected  to  submit  with- 
out murmur  to  a  code  adapted  to  "traffic,"  or  in- 
fluenced by  "commerce,"  or  dictated  by  a  city  de- 
partment seeking  a  "record."  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  spite  of  official  orders,  and  of  the  theoret- 
ical assumption  that  street  peddling  is  merely  a 
matter  of  traffic  regulation,  or  of  protection  to  re- 
tail shopkeepers,  wherever  consumers  insist  in  num- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  73 

bers  on  buying  from  peddlers  they  find  a  way  to 
buy. 

And  is  this  not  just  ?  The  superior  rights  of  traf- 
fic. What  traffic?  That  of  the  automobile  rider, 
flying  through  the  streets  without  speed  limit,  re- 
garding anything  in  his  way  as  an  irritating  impedi- 
ment? That  of  the  retailer,  whose  horse  and  wagon 
is  hurrying  a  few  pounds  or  pecks  of  provisions  to 
half-a-dozen  customers?  The  letters  to  the  daily 
press  condemning  the  pushcart  men,  written  in  the 
tone  of  owners  of  the  streets,  are  usually  from  the 
pleasure  world  or  the  delivery  wagon  interest. 
"Every  movement  against  the  peddlers,"  a  whole- 
sale dealer  in  provisions  said  to  me,  "has  originated 
among  the  retailers."  The  cry  of  "interruption  to 
traffic"  is  often  but  the  hollow  excuse  of  retail 
produce  dealers  to  rid  themselves  of  the  effective 
competition  of  the  peddlers. 

To  the  consumer,  highway  rights  only  are  the 
real  question.  The  claims  of  retail  grocers  that, 
since  they  pay  taxes  or  certain  petty  licenses  to  the 
city,  they  should  be  protected  by  it  from  peddlers' 
"unfair"  competition  is  begging  the  question.  They 
have  bought  no  monopoly,  in  store  or  street,  for 
their  line  of  commerce.  They  have  no  ownership 
in  the  public's  patronage.  They  have  no  special 


74    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

rights  in  the  highways.  They  cannot  be  granted 
exemption  from  the  social  maxim,  "a  fair  field  and 
no  favor."  They  are  not  guaranteed  by  the  mu- 
nicipality a  protection  against  newly  developed 
methods  of  selling  commodities. 

The  pushcart,  the  modern  smooth  city  paving, 
the  peddler's  muscular  and  mercantile  powers,  taken 
together,  form  a  mechanism  which  is  operated  to 
the  advantage  of  the  consumer.  This  joint  mechan- 
ism is  encouraged  by  buyers  wherever  it  is  permit- 
ted to  be  employed.  The  pushcart  "enterprise"  is 
one  of  today's  world  phenomena.  It  is  deprived  of 
fair  play  and  its  due  rewards  whenever  subjected 
to  suppressive  measures.  That  New  York  State 
law  should  be  invoked  in  its  defense  which  forbids 
any  city,  by  ordinances,  hindering  the  direct  con- 
nection of  producers  and  consumers. 

A  remarkable  charge  was  registered  against  push- 
cart peddlers  by  the  McClellan  Commission — that 
of  "lowering  the  standard  of  living  by  decreasing 
the  cost  of  supplies!"  The  down-town  stenogra- 
pher who  wrote  to  a  daily  newspaper  that  she  could 
get  from  the  pushcart  for  five  cents  fruit  that  at 
the  nearby  fruit-store  cost  fifteen,  the  Fifth  avenue 
operative  tailor  who  gets  a  sandwich  at  luncheon 
hour  from  a  peddler  instead  of  being  obliged  to 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  75 

look  for  it  with  a  drink  in  a  saloon,  the  workers 
all  over  the  city  who  on  their  way  home  pick  up 
little  bargains  from  the  carts  for  their  meals — these 
are  guilty  of  "lowering  the  standard  of  living!" 
This  is  an  absurd  contravention  of  the  undeniable 
maxim  of  progress  which  requires  that  a  minimum 
of  effort  should  produce  a  maximum  of  results.  In 
such  topsy-turvy  economics  we  read  the  origin  of 
something  of  the  prejudice  against  the  pushcarts, 
something  of  the  incapacity  of  officials  to  see  how 
much  the  problem  is  one  affecting  consumers  first 
and  foremost,  something  of  the  perverted  ingenuity 
that  has  done  its  best  to  do  away  the  good  for  this 
community  that  lies,  undeveloped,  in  the  pushcart 
traffic.  If  intelligently  regulated  and  treated  as  a 
consumer's  legitimate  agency,  this  traffic,  it  stands 
to  reason,  would  help  our  New  York  million  by  a 
good  percentage  in  lowering  the  cost  of  their  food. 
This  conclusion  is  fortified  by  abundant  evidence, 
past  contradiction,  presented  in  subsequent  chapters. 


V.     A  RIGHTFUL  USE  OF  COMMON  PROP- 
ERTY—BLOCKED BY  STATUTE. 

THE  entire  function  possible  to  the  pushcart  man 
can  not  be  fulfilled  until  his  ambulant  street  vend- 
ing is  supplemented  by  selling  on  stated  days  in  an 
open-air  market-place.  Consider  some  of  the  rea- 
sons for  official  location  of  such  markets  in  New 
York,  with  their  advantages  to  consumers  as  well 
as  vendors. 

The  open-air  market-place  is  a  feature  of  numer- 
ous cities,  large  and  small,  in  certain  parts  of  the 
United  States  and  in  nearly  all  European  countries. 
Many  cities  which  have  covered  markets  permit  the 
streets  or  squares  about  them  to  be  occupied  on  cer- 
tain days  of  the  week  by  farmers'  wagons,  push- 
carts, or  even  temporary  stands  run  by  local  dealers. 

In  various  American  communities  which  have  no 
market-houses  there  are  open-air  markets.  The 
Massachusetts  Report  ("Cost  of  Living,"  page  566) 
says:  "In  the  Middle  West  and  Northwest,  many 
towns  have  market  squares,  but  these  squares  sel- 
dom contain  market-houses.  Such  market-houses 

76 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  77 

as  are  found  in  several  of  the  cities  of  Ohio  are 
generally  open  sheds  in  the  middle  of  public  streets." 
In  Europe,  the  long-established  picturesque  mar- 
ket-places are  ever  a  source  of  interest  to  American 
tourists.  In  Rome,  Friday  at  the  Campo  de'  Fiori 
presents  bargains  in  antique  objects  of  art,  jewelry, 
knick-knacks  in  metals,  and  even  alleged  second- 
hand ecclesiastical  vestments.  In  Pau,  one  day 
brings  fruits  and  general  produce  from  beyond  the 
Pyrenees  in  Spain,  another  live  animals — horses, 
cattle,  pigs,  birds,  dogs  and  cats.  In  Leicester,  Eng- 
land, twice  a  week  the  asphalt-covered  square  in 
front  of  the  time-worn  municipal  building  is  en- 
tirely taken  up  with  stands  on  which  are  exposed 
every  article  of  household  or  personal  use  for  which 
sale  is  possible.  In  Antwerp,  besides  two  markets 
in  buildings  constructed  for  the  purpose,  nineteen 
are  held  in  open  squares  and  similar  locations;  five 
open  every  day,  six  every  day  except  Sunday.  In 
Zurich,  an  open-air  market  is  permitted  twice  a 
week,  fronting  jewelry  and  dry-goods  and  other 
stores,  in  the  principal  business  street  of  the  city, 
every  stand  being  cleared  away  at  noon,  and  half 
an  hour  afterward  the  street,  with  no  trace  of  the 
market  left,  is  restored  to  general  traffic  and  the 
promenade  of  fashion.  In  Montreux,  the  street- 


78    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

cars  have  freight  trailers,  to  carry  passengers'  bas- 
kets from  the  big  open  market-place.  In  Bordeaux, 
many  open-air  markets  occupy  the  same  public 
areas  they  did  a  century  ago,  the  vendors  at  the 
close  of  market  hours  removing  to  one  side  their 
portable  counters,  awnings,  and  other  paraphernalia 
— the  market-places  thus  becoming  parks.  In  Ham- 
burg, two  large  squares  with  adjacent  streets  are 
regularly  used  as  markets  daily  during  certain 
hours. 

Types,  these,  of  the  people's  open-air  markets. 
I  have  visited  them  in  all  the  cities  mentioned.  In 
the  crowds  are  many  buyers  from  the  poorest 
classes,  their  outlay,  in  the  aggregate  consider- 
able to  the  dealers,  usually  counted  out  in  carefully 
handled  small  coin.  Though  the  talk  among  re- 
tailers having  well-to-do  customers  runs  that  "pur- 
chases nowadays  are  mostly  over  the  telephone,"  or 
that  "marketing  is  commonly  done  by  servants," 
the  observer,  in  this  country  or  abroad,  may  any- 
where take  note  of  the  large  proportion  of  people 
having  apparently  ample  means  who,  practicing  the 
domestic  economies  of  their  parents,  walk  along  the 
stands,  or  the  lines  of  "basket  women,"  in  the  open 
market,  comparing  prices,  buying  sparingly  and 
carrying  their  purchases  home. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  79 

In  Boston  (Massachusetts  Report) :  "the  out- 
door market-stands  in  North  and  Blackstone  streets 
are  resorted  to  by  thousands  of  persons  who  buy 
but  small  quantities  and  then  carry  away  in  their 
hands  what  they  buy."  "The  consumers  who  throng 
the  Saturday  retail  markets  buy,  not  from  pro- 
ducers, but  from  middlemen,  whether  lessees  of 
market  stalls  or  pushcart  peddlers,  or  commission 
houses,  or  agents  of  the  Western  packers  turned 
retailers  for  the  nonce."  From  the  same  official 
source  come  these  points :  "In  1868  the  first  mar- 
ket hall  was  opened  in  Berlin  by  a  private  company ; 
but  the  venture  was  short-lived,  because  it  could  not 
compete  with  the  open-air  weekly  markets  in  its 
vicinity."  "In  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Balti- 
more, standing  places  in  the  spaces  around  the  mar- 
ket-houses are  allotted  to  farmers  and  gardeners, 
who  are  required  to  pay  a  small  daily  fee  for  oc- 
cupying them."  Lawrence  Veiller's  Commission 
wrote  in  its  report  to  Mayor  McClellan:  "From 
time  immemorial  in  all  countries  there  has  been  pro- 
vision for  open-air  markets  of  one  kind  or  another 
for  the  sale  of  food,  especially  fruit,  for  the  poorer 
people,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  in  accordance  with 
this  custom  that  licenses  to  peddle  in  New  York's 
streets  were  originally  granted." 


8o     MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

Why  the  open-air  market  is  not  so  common 
throughout  the  United  States  as  the  public  square, 
or  even  as  the  public  thoroughfare,  need  not  long 
puzzle  students  of  this  phase  of  economics.  Im- 
mediate and  definite  private  interests  have  stood  in 
the  way  of  a  distantly  attainable  public  good.  In 
both  small  and  large  communities  the  local  retailers 
want  all  the  provision  and  grocery  trade,  and  uni- 
tedly discourage  the  opening  of  public  markets.  In 
the  larger  communities,  it  is  true,  the  market  prob- 
lem is  complicated  by  the  location,  first  cost,  and 
expenses  in  the  administration  of  market-houses,  as 
distinguished  from  mere  market-places.  But  the 
general  fact  is  that  any  field  of  trade  or  finance 
which  may  yield  a  living,  or  perhaps  a  fortune,  will 
surely  be  occupied  by  as  many  business  men  as  can 
foresee  in  it  any  possible  profit  to  themselves.  Com- 
bined, they  will  find  reasons  for  keeping  out  public 
management  or  control  of  the  field  they  occupy, 
and  this  situation  they  maintain  as  long  as  the  body 
of  the  people  are  indifferent  to  their  own  interests 
in  this  respect  or  see  no  method  worth  while  by 
which  they  may  substitute  their  lesser  per  capita 
common  profit  for  the  business  men's  large  personal 
gains. 

These  and  other  general  truths  pertinent  to  our 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  81 

subject  are  illustrated  by  the  recently  opened  Des 
Moines  free  market,  the  reformed  Indianapolis 
market,  and  several  open-air  squatters'  markets  in 
New  York. 

Mayor  James  R.  Hanna  of  Des  Moines  wrote 
me,  January  24,  1912 : 

."The  Council  opened  a  lot  adjoining  the  City 
Hall  to  gardeners,  farmers,  etc.,  and  also  a  neigh- 
boring street  for  several  blocks.  On  the  opening 
day  there  were  about  two  dozen  wagons,  with  a 
number  of  different  products.  This  number  in- 
creased very  rapidly  until  it  reached  three  hundred 
wagons,  with  a  large  variety  of  vegetables  and  prod- 
uce. Prices  immediately  'hit  the  toboggan,'  as  the 
press  pleased  to  put  it,  and  the  result  was  that  the 
grocers  had  to  make  corresponding  reductions  in 
order  to  compete  at  all.  Prices  were  reduced  from 
20  to  50  per  cent,  and  even  more  in  a  few  instances. 
.  The  open  market-place  was  the  only  mar- 
ket we  had  during  the  summer." 

The  ordinance  (July  21,  1911)  which  established 
this  market  designated  certain  streets  to  be  used  in 
connection  with  it,  and  made  it  lawful  for  others 
to  be  similarly  occupied  when  necessary.  No  charge 
was  made  vendors  for  their  space — mark  this  sig- 
nificant, fact — though  power  was  given  the  City 
Council  to  establish  rentals.  One  section  of  the 
market-place  was  allotted  to  producers  and  another 
to  "peddlers,  hucksters,  and  others."  The  markets 


82    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

were  open  from  early  morning  to  10 130  ( 10  in  sum- 
mer) Tuesdays,  Thursdays,  and  Saturdays. 

The  shameful  history  of  Tomlinson  market  in 
Indianapolis  included  produce  ring  transactions 
which  practically  closed  its  stalls  to  farmers  and 
small  retailers  until  Mayor  Shank  brought  to  bear 
upon  it  the  methods  of  an  "open"  as  well  as  "open- 
air"  market.  He  says  (Washington  "Post,"  Feb- 
ruary n,  1912)  :  "The  commission  merchants  were 
holding  the  prices  up  by  representing  to  the  pro- 
ducer that  the  Indianapolis  market  was  glutted  and 
at  the  same  time  representing  to  the  consumer  that 
there  was  a  great  scarcity."  The  stalls  of  Tomlin- 
son market  had  been  subject  to  barter  and  sale  by 
stand-keepers  in  the  manner  of  dealers  in  real  es- 
tate. Farmers  were  hindered  from  huckstering  in 
the  city  streets.  Mayor  Shank  writes:  "Any  or- 
dinance or  rule  which  makes  it  hard  for  the  garden- 
er to  peddle  his  products  from  house  to  house 
throughout  the  city  should  be  changed,  and  he 
should  be  given  all  the  encouragement  possible." 

In  New  York,  "Catherine  Market"  became  offi- 
cially a  thing  of  the  past  when  ten  years  ago  its 
old  buildings  were  torn  down,  after  the  market  it- 
self was  stricken  from  the  diminishing  list  of  pub- 
lic market-houses.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  83 

people  continuing  to  buy  and  sell  on  its  site  and  in 
the  vicinity  have  kept  its  name  alive.  A  faithful 
history  of  Catherine  Market  would  illustrate  the 
course  of  the  whole  market  problem  for  New  York 
as  well  as  the  city's  changes  in  population.  Estab- 
lished in  1786,  it  was  for  a  century  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal local  retail  markets.  In  1860  it  contained  fifty- 
eight  booths  under  cover,  besides  the  space  occu- 
pied by  open-air  vendors.  The  change  in  the  neigh- 
borhood is  shown  in  the  contrast  between  the 
swarms  of  the  poor-looking  buyers  and  sellers  who 
congregate  there  at  present  on  Sunday  mornings 
and  the  people  thus  described  in  a  periodical,  "The 
American"  (April  6,  1825),  under  the  caption, 
"Proof  of  the  Comfortable  Situation  of  the  Work- 
ing Classes  in  our  City" : 

"I  took  a  station  at  Catherine  Market,  which  is 
the  great  emporium  for  the  mechanics  and  laborers 
on  Saturday  evening,  to  offer  a  joint  and  trimmings 
to  any  one  who  appeared  to  be  in  want.  At  the  end 
of  two  hours,  I  observed  but  one  individual  whose 
external  appearance  warranted  my  offering  the 
boon.  He  answered  (in  reply  to  my  application) 
that  he  received  ten  shillings  per  day  wages,  and 
that  he  had  in  his  pocket  $5  of  the  week's  earnings 
to  buy  his  Sunday  dinner.  I  counted  upward  of 
870  men  and  women  who  passed  me  to  buy  at  the 
market  in  the  two  hours." 


84     MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

On  Sunday  morning,  March  17,  1912,  a  philan- 
thropist's embarrassment,  on  the  contrary,  might 
have  arisen  from  uncertainty  as  to  how  few  of  the 
men,  women  or  children  in  attendance  at  the  mar- 
ket— as  I  then  saw  them — would  not  without  ques- 
tion have  accepted  a  proffered  "joint  and  trim- 
mings." Foreign  born,  with  a  sprinkling  of  re- 
spectable looking  negroes,  the  majority  were  evi- 
dently of  the  hard-working  and  ill-paid  poor. 
Counting  wagon-men  and  pushcart  and  basket  men 
and  women,  keepers  of  the  shops  open  about  the 
market  and  assistants,  there  may  have  been  present 
in  all  five  hundred  vendors.  The  market  area  took 
up  the  old  Catherine  market  slip  and  site,  with 
a  block  in  South,  another  in  Market,  and  part 
of  a  block  in  Water  street.  The  crowd  present  at 
8  o'clock  I  estimated  at  about  2,500.  As  purchasers 
were  coming  and  going  continually,  the  total  num- 
ber during  the  morning  was  possibly  10,000  per- 
sons. 

Here  are  certain  points  regarding  Catherine  mar- 
ket-place, with  reasons  for  establishing  similar  mar- 
kets throughout  the  city:  (i)  It  is  open  the  year 
'round.  Bad  weather  is  no  insuperable  obstacle  to 
open-air  buying  and  selling  among  the  working 
people  of  New  York.  (2)  The  positions  in  the 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  85 

market  are  under  the  rule,  "First  come  first  served.'* 
Two  policemen  present  on  duty  told  me :  "We 
don't  interfere  on  that  point,  or  in  fact  hardly  at 
all.  We  let  them  fight  it  out  among  themselves, 
and  they  finally  agree  somehow."  Considerable 
room  for  self-government  can  be  left  to  vendors. 
(3)  The  market  is  open  at  a  time  when  there  is  no 
general  traffic  in  the  streets  it  occupies.  There  are 
many  spaces  in  New  York  below  Sixty-second 
street,  convenient  to  our  million,  which  might  be 
put  to  a  similar  use  at  proper  times.  (4)  The  per- 
sistent existence  of  this  market  proves  its  value  to 
consumers.  In  every  crowded  quarter  of  the  city, 
a  similar  one  might,  on  a  fair  trial,  prove  of  equal 
value  to  numerous  economical  buyers.  ( 5  )  In  open- 
air  buying,  the  slim  pocket-book  makes  no  apology. 
All,  buyers  and  sellers,  meet  on  a  level  in  a  com- 
mercial democracy.  The  fine  shop,  with  the  over- 
dressed sales-person,  is  unattractive  to  proud  inde- 
pendence in  plain  clothes.  The  European  peasantry 
and  town  laborers  alike  are  accustomed  to  the  chaf- 
fering, the  picking  and  choosing,  the  features  of  a 
fair,  in  the  market-place.  (6)  The  attendance  at 
the  Catherine  Market  includes  persons  well  clothed 
and  otherwise  apparently  not  among  the  needy. 
People  in  comfortable  circumstances  are  often  not 


86    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

above  small  savings.  With  a  spread  of  the  open- 
air  system  their  numbers  could  increase.  (7)  The 
wares  and  provisions  on  sale  at  the  Catherine  Mar- 
ket include,  at  one  part,  fresh  fish  of  various  kinds 
(eels  and  lobsters  alive)  with  oysters  and  clams; 
at  another  part,  clothing  (new  and  second  hand), 
hats,  caps,  men's  furnishing  goods,  women's  dress 
goods  and  millinery;  then  oilcloths,  kitchen  ware, 
curtains  and  other  household  goods  (some  second- 
hand) ;  vegetables,  apples,  oranges,  bananas,  etc., 
mostly  in  the  Catherine  slip;  Italian  groceries,  gar- 
lic and  sweets.  (8)  The  bakeries  and  groceries  and 
other  shops  of  the  vicinity  stock  heavily  for  the 
Sunday  buying  of  a  foreign  patronage.  The  open- 
air  market  "creates  a  commercial  atmosphere  in  the 
neighborhood."  (9)  Many  of  the  vendors  come  a 
long  distance.  Of  a  certainty,  as  in  the  smaller 
cities,  producers  would  find  their  way  to  any  open 
market  promising  a  profit. 

The  areas  of  the  vacant  land  in  and  about  Great- 
er New  York  that  might  be  occupied  by  market 
gardeners,  had  they  direct  access  to  consumers,  is 
suggested  by  the  numerous  "truck"  patches  near 
foreign  cities  and  by  Pennsylvania  farmers  driving 
twenty  miles  to  the  town  market.  The  Assistant 
Superintendent  of  the  famous  Newark  open  mar- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  87 

ket  says  that  farmers  come  to  it  forty  miles,  bring- 
ing a  load  of  produce  and  carrying  back  to  their 
locality  various  articles  bought  in  the  city. 

Just  as  in  Catherine  Market,  the  open-air  Sun- 
day morning  markets  of  Antwerp  sell,  among  other 
articles,  second  hand  clothes,  old  books,  metal  rem- 
nants and  rags,  flowers  and  furniture.  So  also  the 
small-park  markets  of  Amsterdam,  every  day.  In 
Lyons,  France,  "bazaars"  are  held  every  morning 
of  the  week  in  one  of  the  squares  or  on  the  quays, 
the  merchants  hand-cart  men  and  women.  Their 
stock,  as  described  by  Consul  John  C.  Covert  ("Mu- 
nicipal Markets")  includes  "ribbons,  laces,  straw 
hats,  cheap  clothing,  all  kinds  of  remnants,  any- 
thing in  short  that  can  be  easily  transported  and 
sold  at  a  low  figure."  "These  perambulating  mar- 
kets are  useful  to  the  poorer  classes,"  says  the  Con- 
sul. "Large  numbers  of  women  and  servant  girls 
make  them  the  place  for  their  small  purchases — 
ribbons,  a  bit  of  lace,  a  remnant  of  silk,  artificial 
flowers,  dishes,  an  odd  cup  and  saucer,  and  small 
articles  which  they  might  have  trouble  to  find  in  a 
store." 

Many  similar  illustrations  might  be  given  of  the 
uncovered  open-air  markets  of  Europe  and  Amer- 


88    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

ica.  They  belong  to  the  people's  present  age,  as 
much  as  the  ballot-box. 

"Paddy's  Market"  in  New  York,  on  both  sides 
of  Ninth  avenue,  between  Thirty-eighth  and  Forty- 
second  streets,  is  open  every  week  in  the  year.  The 
deductions  from  the  fruit  and  vegetable  selling  at 
Catherine  Market  are  applicable  here,  with  the  im- 
portant addition  that,  a  better  stock  being  on  sale, 
many  of  the  customers  are  well-paid  wage  workers, 
boarding-house  keepers,  and  other  persons  comfort- 
ably situated.  The  lower  East  Side  open-air  mar- 
ket streets — Orchard,  Allen,  Ridge,  Mulberry — tes- 
tify to  the  variety  of  nationalities  that  find  street 
selling  and  buying  a  convenience  and  a  profit.  Dime- 
savers  are  in  all  grades  of  bank  depositors.  Both 
Mayor  Shank  and  Mayor  Hanna  tell  of  bargain 
hunters  coming  to  the  new  open  markets  in  auto- 
mobiles. Mulberry,  now  a  short-cut  automobile 
street,  sees  many  a  sale,  especially  of  clams,  Italian 
fruits  and  other  rarities,  from  pushcart  dealers  to 
up-town  patrons. 

The  social  problem  being  worked  out  in  the  New 
York  open-air  markets  presents  one  phase  especially 
significant.  That  is,  these  markets  are  illegal.  They 
are  only  "tolerated."  They  have  left  the  city  ordi- 
nances behind,  antiquated,  unsuited  to  buyers  and 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  89 

sellers  and  inapplicable  to  the  general  conditions  of 
metropolitan  life  today.  One  dead  law,  for  exam- 
ple :  "The  city  cannot  grant  permits  to  erect  stands 
in  the  public  streets"  (Cosby's  Code,  page  15). 
But — at  these  street  markets  and  elsewhere — the 
stands,  perhaps  on  wheels,  are  numerous  before 
one's  eyes. 

The  code,  or  legislative  authority,  has  from  time 
to  time  been  successfully  invoked  to  abolish  open 
markets  of  the  city — those  at  Tenth  avenue  and 
Fifty-second  street,  at  Varick  and  Carmine  streets, 
and  in  upper  Second  avenue.  "The  business  men 
didn't  want  the  peddlers  here,"  a  workingman  told 
me  at  the  vacated  Carmine  market  space.  "Did 
you?"  "Certainly;  they  sold  cheap."  A  "Paddy's 
Market"  standkeeper  said :  "We  were  driven  away 
from  Tenth  avenue  by  the  shopkeepers,  but  in  two 
weeks  they  wanted  us  back,  with  the  crowds  we 
attract."  In  these  cases  a  general  benefit  was  ended 
through  private  interests.  But  in  other  neighbor- 
hoods, where  public  opinion  has  been  strong  enough, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  desired  local  market-place  has 
survived  the  prohibitory  law. 

Whatever  may  be  the  letter  of  the  New  York 
City  Charter  or  ordinances  at  this  moment  forbid- 
ding the  use  of  public  streets  as  markets,  a  funda- 


90     MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

mental  American  principle,  sound  enough  to  prevail 
on  an  important  occasion,  was  laid  down  by  Josiah 
Quincy,  Jr.,  in  1866,  when  the  question  was  raised 
whether  the  area  of  the  market-place  adjoining 
Faneuil  Hall  in  Boston  should  legally  be  extended. 
He  wrote : 

"The  terms  of  the  act,  so  far  as  they  relate  to 
the  taking  and  the  indemnification  of  the  owner, 
will  be  precisely  the  same  with  the  terms  used  in 
former  turnpike  acts.  Indeed,  so  far  as  it  respects 
the  power  exercised,  it  will  be  in  terms  the  same  as 
if,  instead  of  streets  and  a  market,  the  proposition 
was  to  lay  a  turnpike  from  the  east  end  of  Faneuil 
Hall  1 80  feet  wide."  .  .  .  "But  is  a  public 
market,  in  fact,  a  thing  of  public  use?  A  question 
of  this  kind  is  precisely  the  same  as  whether  a  pub- 
lic highway  is  a  thing  of  public  use?"  "What  is  a 
public  market  but  a  place  where  all  the  citizens  of 
the  commonwealth  may  meet  for  the  purpose  of  the 
sale  and  purchase  of  articles  of  produce  and  sub- 
sistence?" 

The  Faneuil  Hall  market-place  extension  was  ac- 
cordingly made,  and  it  has  ever  since  remained  both 
market  and  street. 

In  the  light  of  this  precedent,  and  the  general 
facts  just  cited,  our  million  consumers  south  of  Six- 
ty-second street,  whose  interests  and  rights  we  are 
considering  as  illustrative,  can  with  sound  reason 
demand  that  certain  streets  and  open  spaces,  and 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  91 

even  the  asphalted  small  parks,  in  their  part  of 
Manhattan,  should,  at  certain  hours  of  specified 
days,  be  used  for  market  purposes. 

Free  open-air  markets  would  be  the  idea.  No 
army  of  functionaries;  that  fact  is  established  in 
the  market-places  which  our  New  York  people  have 
established  contrary  to  officialdom.  The  present 
street  markets,  each  with  ten  times  the  retail  ven- 
dors in  any  one  of  the  market-houses,  get  along 
without  officials.  A  few  policemen  and  "white 
wings"  are  enough.  And,  as  in  Des  Moines,  no 
rentals  whatever  need  be  charged.  Nobody  thinks 
of  having  to  pay  a  rental  for  walking  or  driving 
in  the  streets.  Officials  speak  of  possible  rents  put- 
ting proposed  new  market-houses  on  "a  self-sup- 
porting basis,"  or  "making  a  clear  profit  to  the 
city,"  which  was  formerly  the  official  notion  of 
bridges,  but  bridge  tolls  have  been  generally  abol- 
ished. Rental  for  open-air  market  positions,  if 
anything  more  than  nominal,  would  keep  away 
small  casual  vendors  and  serve  to  establish  a  mo- 
nopoly by  the  big  dealers,  with  probably  forms  of 
favoritism.  When  certain  town  libraries  of  Mas- 
sachusetts charged  subscribers  $3  a  year,  not  one- 
quarter  of  the  people  patronized  them.  But  when 
made  free  the  public  in  general  flocked  to  them. 


92  MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

The  rental  theory  for  street  space  has  no  just 
standing.  Anybody  with  anything  legitimate  to  sell 
ought  to  be  given  opportunity  to  offer  it  on  the 
common  grounds,  whenever  not  obstructing  their 
more  urgent  general  use.  The  home  producer — of 
preserves,  of  clothing,  of  embroideries,  of  toys,  of 
anything  that  one's  neighbor  might  wish  to  buy — 
should  not  be  interfered  with  when  placing  such 
things  on  sale  publicly,  under  fair  health  and  traf-  . 
fie  regulations,  in  a  free  market.  Curiously,  in  New 
York  our  public  library  system  will  trust  any  man, 
woman,  or  youngster,  coming  from  any  quarter, 
with  five  dollars'  worth  of  books,  but  our  public 
market  system  refuses  to  trust  poor  people  to  sell 
a  dime's  worth  of  anything  without  the  cost  and 
other  difficulties  of  a  license — except  when  a  big 
crowd  buys  and  sells  in  the  streets  despite  the  law. 

Auctioning  brings  prices  to  meet  immediate  de- 
mand. In  Pennsylvania  market-places,  the  auction- 
eer's cry  is  heard  all  during  the  market  hours,  as  he 
sells  household  articles.  If  fruit  and  vegetables  can 
be  sold  as  they  are  at  auction,  wholesale,  in  large 
quantities  on  the  New  York  docks,  there  can  hardly 
exist  a  valid  reason  for  not  permitting  sales  by 
the  same  principle  in  people's  open-air  retail  mar- 
kets. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  93 

As  the  methods  for  saving  through  conserving 
and  buying  continue  thus  to  develop,  the  possibili- 
ties of  a  total  reduction  of  perhaps  a  quarter  or  a 
third  in  the  cost  of  marketing  for  the  family  begin 
to  come  within  sight.  Also,  opportunities  for  some 
of  our  million  consumers  to  make  an  occasional 
dollar  as  vendors.  The  production  in  small  quan- 
tities by  many  people  is  encouraged  astonishingly 
when,  with  little  or  no  burden  imposed  on  their 
commerce,  home  producers  can  meet  consumers 
publicly  in  buying  and  selling.  In  the  Tuesday 
open-air  market  of  Berne,  with  80,000  inhabitants, 
are  to  be  seen  more  than  2,000  peasant  and  town 
vendors,  perhaps  the  majority  "basket  women" 
whose  stock  of  eggs  or  similar  small  products  is 
worth  on  the  average  perhaps  two  dollars.  Pro- 
ducing for  market,  it  is  to  be  observed,  leads  to 
producing  for  one's  self  or  family. 

No  part  of  our  scheme  for  free  open-air  markets 
is  to  cost  the  city  one  dollar  for  new  plant  or  addi- 
tional official  bureaus.  Pending  the  slower  process- 
es of  obtaining  permissive  legislation,  nothing  more 
is  suggested  than  to  add  to  the  areas  of  toleration 
already  existing. 


VI.     PUBLIC  MARKETS  IN  THE  UNITED 
STATES— HURTFUL  TO   "BUSINESS." 

ONE  of  the  stock  subjects  of  talk  among  com- 
mercial travelers,  suggested  by  their  daily  observa- 
tions, is  the  slow  and  irregular  spread  of  civil  in- 
stitutions. Massachusetts  has  a  free  public  library 
in  all  of  her  thirty  cities  and  in  nearly  every  one 
of  her  330  towns;  but  other  of  our  States  have  not 
one  to  a  county.  In  the  libraries  of  advanced  cities, 
even  the  children  who  take  out  books  are  given  di- 
rect access  to  the  shelves,  to  choose  and  carry  away ; 
but  many  a  rural  visitor  to  the  same  places  keeps 
his  hand  on  his  pocket-book  as  he  walks  the  streets, 
convinced  by  stories  of  crime  current  in  the  country 
grocery  that  folks  in  town  often  steal.  Certain 
States  have  in  many  counties  excellent  roads;  but 
parts  of  the  Union  have  poorer  highways  than 
would  be  tolerated  under  any  government  in  west- 
ern Europe.  New  England,  New  York  and  the 
Northwest  have  the  savings  bank  highly  developed ; 
but  in  other  parts  of  the  country  the  savings  bank 
in  its  exact  sense  is  almost  unknown,  "savings"  de- 

94 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          95 

scribing  any  sort  of  small  banking.  The  building 
and  loan  association  has  flourished  in  only  a  few 
States,  though  its  work  is  generally  known.  How 
far  behind  Germany  is  America  with  respect  to 
working-class  "compensation" !  Similarly,  the  pub- 
lic market,  while  from  early  days  a  familiar  feature 
to  communities  far  apart,  has  had  but  a  feeble 
growth  in  our  country  as  a  whole. 

When  "Why  ?"  follows  a  review  of  these  uneven 
developments  in  civilization,  interesting  verdicts  are 
pronounced  by  cynical  travelers  upon  the  indiffer- 
ence and  lethargy  of  the  masses  wherever  the  com- 
mon good  is  concerned  and  upon  the  aptness  of 
shrewd  and  self-seeking  active  spirits  to  "get  the 
best  of  it"  in  every  community. 

It  is,  if  not  a  reproach,  "a  curious  commentary" 
on  New  England,  the  land  of  steady — and  econom- 
ical— habits  that  it  has  in  only  a  few  places  taken 
to  the  public  retail  market.  The  traveler  makes 
comparisons  as  he  stands  one  week  watching  a  busy 
market  in  the  public  square  of  a  Pennsylvania  town 
after  having  seen  the  week  before  the  grocers  of 
a  Connecticut  village  charging  their  customers  ring 
prices.  Amusing  to  this  class  of  observers  were 
the  discoveries  made  by  the  daily  press,  when  "the 
higher  cost  of  living"  was  a  fresh  topic,  of  the 


96  MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

great  things  done  through  the  municipal  market  ex- 
periments in  Des  Moines  and  Indianapolis — things 
that  in  principle  have  been  going  on  regularly  in  a 
goodly  number  of  towns  and  cities  elsewhere  in  the 
United  States  for  a  century  or  two. 

A  schedule  of  inquiries  sent  by  me  in  January, 
1912,  to  many  Secretaries  of  State  brought  illumi- 
nating replies  from  New  England.  To  the  query, 
"Is  there  a  system  of  public  markets  in  the  towns 
and  cities  of  your  State?"  the  reply  in  four  cases 
was  "No,"  or  "We  know  of  none."  Connecticut 
replied :  "There  are  no  systems  of  public  markets 
in  the  towns  and  cities  of  this  State,  except  those 
conducted  by  private  enterprise."  To  the  inquiry, 
"Has  any  general  work  been  published  on  the  sub- 
ject in  your  State  ?"  all  replied  "No,"  except  Massa- 
chusetts, which  said,  "Have  not  seen  or  heard  of 
any  such."  Yet  only  two  short  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  very  competent  Massachusetts  "Commis- 
sion on  the  Cost  of  Living"  had  issued  its  valuable 
report  of  752  pages,  containing  more  pertinent  mat- 
ter on  American  public  markets  than  was  to  be 
found  in  all  reports  or  other  reference  books  on 
the  subject  theretofore  issued.  The  significant 
point  of  testimony  in  this  instance  is  the  imperme- 
ableness  of  officialdom  to  other  than  perfunctory 


MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE  97 

duties.  A  volume  of  equal  importance  on  gas- 
works, or  street-car  operation,  or  any  phase  of  bank- 
ing, would  certainly  be  accessible  to  every  private 
undertaking  interested,  and  consequently  known  to 
every  manager.  It  may  here  be  added  that,  though 
the  benefits  of  public  markets  for  the  smaller  cities 
were  dwelt  upon  in  that  Massachusetts  report,  at 
this  writing  only  the  first  step  has  been  taken  in 
that  State  to  put  a  new  public  market  in  operation, 
in  accordance  with  the  Commission's  well-designed 
recommendations. 

The  Secretaries  of  State  for  New  Jersey,  Vir- 
ginia and  West  Virginia  replied  to  my  inquiries  that 
they  knew  of  no  system  of  public  markets  in  the 
cities  and  towns  of  their  respective  commonwealths. 
Delaware  mentioned  the  Wilmington  market;  New 
York  and  Maryland  merely  replied  that  the  mar- 
kets were  not  under  State  control.  None  of  the 
Secretaries  knew  of  any  report  or  other  publication 
on  the  subject.  "It  may  be  noted,"  says  the  Massa- 
chusetts report,  "that  most  of  the  public  retail  mar- 
kets of  the  country  existing  at  the  present  time  are 
found  within  the  limits  of  the  thirteen  original 
States  and  in  Ohio  and  Indiana." 

The  scarcity  of  information  as  to  markets  to  be 
obtained  from  State  officials  or  bureau  reports  well 


98          JV1ARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

illustrates  that  what  is,  or  ought  to  be,  everybody's 
information  is  nobody's,  and  that  needed  public  in- 
stitutions are  often  unprovided.  But  the  benefits  of 
"farmers'  markets/'  especially  of  those  in  the  towns 
and  cities  of  the  agricultural  districts  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, are  well  worth  the  study  of  economists  and 
the  public.  These  markets  have  long  been  success- 
fully operated  in  many  places  now  having  from  10,- 
ooo  to  100,000  inhabitants — Carlisle,  Harrisburg, 
Lebanon,  Easton,  Allentown,  Lancaster,  Williams- 
port,  Reading.  The  market  building  accommodates 
principally  butchers,  bakers  and  dealers  in  butter, 
cheese,  eggs,  and  poultry.  In  the  open  market 
square  and  in  adjoining  streets  stand  farmers'  and 
hucksters'  wagons,  in  which  is  exposed  for  sale 
produce  mostly  grown  in  the  surrounding  country. 
Thus  producer  and  consumer  are  brought  face  to 
face.  Effects  of  the  market  lie  not  only  in  keeping 
prices  at  a  normal  point  but  in  encouraging  produc- 
tion. Stiff  combination  among  the  vendors  is  dif- 
ficult because  of  their  number  and  of  the  wide  open 
door  to  new  competitors.  The  townsfolk  usually 
provide  for  a  free  competition,  preventing,  in  their 
own  interest,  costly  licenses  or  the  adoption  of  mar- 
ket-house rules  which  might  hinder  country  people 
attending  as  sellers.  Assured  of  his  opportunity  for 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE  99 

a  sale,  a  working  farmer  or  gardener,  or  even  a 
woodchopper  or  day  laborer,  needing  very  little 
cash  for  his  living,  will  in  his  odd  hours  raise  poul- 
try or  vegetables  for  market,  or  bring  to  it  his  extra 
pork  products,  dried  corn,  fruits  or  loads  of  fire- 
wood— all  of  which  storekeeping  retailers,  if  they 
were  the  sole  purveyors  to  the  community,  could 
refuse  to  buy  and  sell  except  on  terms  yielding  the 
middleman's  usual  good  percentage  of  profit. 
Though  the  cold-storage  of  the  cities  has  deprived 
consumers  of  the  very  low  summer  prices  formerly 
customary  for  eggs,  butter,  and  poultry  in  these 
Pennsylvania  markets,  the  local  grocers  are  still 
governed  in  their  prices  for  other  provisions  by  the 
rates  ruling  on  market  days.  Through  the  simple 
economic  principles  seen  in  these  facts,  the  price  to 
the  buyer  is  brought  down  to  the  point  at  which 
the  producer  gets  enough  to  encourage  him  to  con- 
tinue producing,  while  nothing  goes  to  unnecessary 
handlers  of  his  product. 

It  could  hardly  be  expected  by  promoters  of  mar- 
kets that,  except  in  a  season  of  unusually  high  prices, 
farmers  or  other  vendors  would  at  once  flock  to  a 
newly  established  market  in  a  town  not  having  had 
one  previously.  "Attending  market,"  a  sort  of  side 
occupation  with  many  small  producers,  is  a  pursuit 


ioo         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

naturally  of  slow  growth,  followed,  as  a  rule,  only 
by  hard-working  men  and  women.  The  careful 
housewives  of  the  town  are  mostly  the  buyers.  The 
public  market  is  thus  "a  people's"  institution.  Fash- 
ion, or  imitation  fashion,  or  near-snobbery,  disdains 
the  admission  of  saving  dimes  that  is  made  by 
carrying  a  market-basket  in  the  street.  The  New 
York  State  Commission's  Market  Committee  (page 
68)  says  of  the  Rochester  market:  "It  is  not  pat- 
ronized, however,  by  the  better  class  of  people" — 
a  condescending  form  of  statement  coming  from 
aristocratic  public  servants  to  a  democratic  con- 
stituency ! 

Neither  is  the  public  market  a  business  man's  in- 
stitution. On  the  contrary,  it  hurts  "business."  It 
cuts  away  fat  profits  from  grocer,  butcher,  and 
baker.  It  brings  no  advertisements  to  the  local 
newspaper.  It  is  in  cases  an  injury  to  real  estate 
values,  for  were  the  trade  of  its  stalls  and  street 
stands  distributed  in  private  grocery  and  other 
stores  the  owners  thereof  would  be  enriched  by  cap- 
italized rentals.  Storekeepers  may  be  heard  com- 
plaining that  the  money  carried  away  by  market- 
ing farmers  ought  to  be  left  with  the  business  men 
of  the  town.  "The  commercial  interests"  of  a  com- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE   )PFOPL£         u 

munity  do  not  write  reports  lauding  the  local  public 
market  as  a  social  benefit. 

Of  the  158  cities  in  America  having  30,000  in- 
habitants or  more  which  reported  to  the  Census 
Bureau  in  1907,  only  54  made  returns  on  public 
markets.  Not  more  than  25  had  "receipts" — muni- 
cipal revenues — from  markets  to  the  amount  of 
$10,000.  Thus  is  seen  the  field  throughout  the 
United  States  yet  open  for  the  spread  of  this  in- 
disputably beneficent  popular  institution. 

As  to  retail  open-air  markets  in  New  York,  there 
seems  to  be,  from  the  facts  we  have  reviewed,  the 
possibility  for  a  gradual  growth  of  a  serviceable 
up-to-date  system.  Certain  suburbs  of  the  Greater 
City  offer  favorable  sites  for  initial  experiments. 
The  Staten  Island  "Advance"  has  suggested  that  a 
market  at  the  ferry-house  at  St.  George  would  have 
its  advantages  to  the  "commuters"  passing  through 
it  daily ;  they  might  give  their  orders  to  stallkeepers 
on  going  to  their  work  in  the  morning  and  take 
away  their  purchases  when  homeward  bound  in  the 
evening.  Jersey  suburbanites  do  so  at  the  old  Wash- 
ington retail  market.  The  "Advance"  mentioned 
facilities  for  an  attendance  at  St.  George  of  farm- 
ers from  the  island  and  pushcart  men  from  Man- 
hattan. Its  plan,  as  thus  explained,  was  not  over- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

ambitious  or  costly.  For  indoor  markets,  could  not 
both  the  New  York  Central  and  the  Pennsylvania 
railroads  find  space  in  their  great  new  Manhattan 
stations,  near,  perhaps  underneath,  their  waiting 
rooms,  for  retail  markets  ?  At  the  Reading  Termi- 
nal Market  in  Philadelphia,  which  has  842  stalls, 
Saturdays  bring  an  attendance  of  as  high  as  60,000 
persons.  New  York's  railroads  may  yet  take  an 
important  part  in  the  city's  transforming  marketing 
methods. 

A  number  of  the  outlying  districts  of  Greater  New 
York— Bath  Beach,  Bay  Ridge,  Brownsville,  Flat- 
bush,  Flushing,  points  in  The  Bronx — present  some- 
what the  same  opportunities  for  local  public  retail 
markets  as  do  the  lesser  American  cities.  In  or  near 
several  of  these  districts  are  areas  of  uncultivated 
lands  on  which  intensive  crops  might  be  raised  for 
the  local  market,  once  sales  were  assured.  A  begin- 
ning might  be  made  in  establishing  any  one  of  these 
markets  by  giving  free  scope  to  pushcart  and  wagon 
hucksters,  as  well  as  to  market-gardeners  and 
others,  to  hold  open-air  markets  on  two  or  three 
days  of  the  week  in  the  streets,  or  in  open  spaces 
owned  either  by  the  city  or  the  transportation  com- 
panies, at  points  where  the  stream  of  travelers  or 
other  probable  customers  pass  on  their  way.  Or, 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         103 

privately  owned  vacant  lots  might  be  so  used.  An 
open-air  market  would  in  time  indicate  through  its 
growth  or  failure  whether  a  covered  market  were 
needed  in  any  particular  case,  and  if  so  what  ought 
to  be  the  character  of  its  facilities  for  service. 

Coming  nearer  the  heart  of  the  city,  Manhat- 
tan's various  bridge  approaches  afford  the  space 
and  .covering  for  several  district  markets.  If  free- 
dom were  for  a  while  given  wagon-men,  pushcart 
people,  and  vendors  in  general  to  occupy,  during  the 
early  morning  hours  of  two  days  a  week  and  on 
Saturday  evenings,  some  such  spaces  as  well  as  a 
number  of  the  small  parks  and  wider  street  areas 
of  Manhattan,  the  points  most  successful  in  attract- 
ing buyers  might  indicate  where  market  shelters, 
which  perhaps  could  be  used  also  for  other  public 
purposes,  should  finally  be  erected.  Perhaps — in- 
deed very  probably — housed  markets  would  not  be 
needed  at  all.  New  York,  unlike  Paris  or  Berlin, 
has  inhabitants  of  many  nationalities.  It  is  not  a 
single  city.  A  conglomeration  of  "colonies"  forms 
its  working  class  districts.  Each  "colony"  might 
find  special  uses  for  its  own  neighborhood  market- 
place. For  none  of  these  suggested  innovations 
would  appropriations  from  the  city  be  necessary  at 
the  beginning. 


io4         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

We  have  been  looking  at  the  facts  which  warrant 
the  small  beginnings  in  markets  that  may  safely  lead 
up  to  permanent  establishments.  Up  to  the  present, 
however,  suggestions  made  by  various  persons  in 
this  field  have  come  almost  exclusively  in  the  con- 
trary form  of  Napoleonic  conceptions — such  as  ter- 
minated at  Moscow. 

It  cannot  be  assumed  that  municipal  market- 
houses,  as  distinguished  from  mere  market-places, 
may  be.  created  like  "cinemas"  in  any  and  all  of  our 
cities  with  a  probability  of  success.  With  a  city's 
growth,  the  advantages  of  the  public  market-place, 
uncovered  or  partly  under  cover,  may  be  overcome 
by  the  disadvantages  of  location,  of  official  blunder- 
ing, and  of  restrictions  imposed  on  stallkeepers 
struggling  under  heavy  expense  to  cope  with  other 
methods  and  conditions  of  selling  developed  in  re- 
cent years  in  our  American  communities.  The 
Pennsylvania  markets  usually  get  along  with  a  sin- 
gle market-master,  assisted  by  a  laborer  or  two  on 
market  days.  Indianapolis  has  shown  us  how,  when 
a  city  reaches  a  population  of  235,00x3,  graft,  ring 
rule,  and  mistakes  of  administration  may  nullify 
the  usual  advantages  of  a  public  market,  at  least 
until  a  reformer  in  the  Mayor's  chair  plays  Czar 
and  auctioneer,  to  the  dismay  of  the  middlemen 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          105 

"combines"  and  the  equally  objectionable  bureau 
barnacles. 

There  is  no  puzzling  complexity  in  the  case  to  be 
mastered  before  seeing  why  public  markets  in  our 
big  cities  fail.  Open-air  markets  go  out  of  exist- 
ence when  the  police  club  away  from  it  the  attend- 
ing vendors.  Covered  markets  decay  through  sev- 
eral equally  plain  reasons,  which  we  may  get  at  by 
looking  for  a  moment  at  something  of  the  discour- 
aging story  of  New  York's  vanished  system. 

New  York  had  a  market  system  until  recent 
years  since  1656.  A  pride  of  our  citizens  during 
many  decades  of  its  existence,  and  in  its  day  when 
the  city  lay  mostly  below  Fourteenth  street  amply 
proving  its  value,  in  time,  as  the  city  and  politics 
waxed,  the  markets  waned.  Once  in  a  while  re- 
formers wanted  to  know  why.  Investigations  were 
had,  somebody  was  blamed  and  something  recom- 
mended, and  then  the  public  slept  again.  The  rec- 
ords show  this  story  repeated  for  more  than  half 
a  century.  In  1859,  when  Thirty- fourth  street  was 
far  uptown,  George  W.  Morton,  City  Market  In- 
spector, reported: 

"I  have  alluded  to  the  growth  and  inadequacy  of 
the  market  accommodations  in  the  upper  portion  of 
the  city,  the  insufficiency  of  which  has  led  to  the 


io6         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

establishment  of  small  markets  or  meat  shops,  and 
to  the  sale  of  meats,  vegetables,  etc.,  by  dealers  in 
family  groceries,  etc.,  the  additional  profit  to  these 
dealers  inflicting  an  unnecessary  additional  cost  to 
the  consumer.  ...  If  convenient  markets  were 
located  in  the  upper  wards  I  am  of  opinion  it  would 
prove  of  advantage  to  all  parties.  .  .  .  Market 
gardeners  and  others  would  proceed  directly  to 
these  markets  to  secure  a  sale.  No  new  markets 
have  been  opened  since  1830." 


In  "The  Market  Book"  (1861),  page  453,  comes 
this  passage : 


"The  present  old  dilapidated  market-houses  here 
are  certainly  a  disgrace  to  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  have  been  for  the  last  fifteen  years,  and  there 
is  now  no  encouragement  even  to  attempt  to  better 
them,  in  the  erection  of  new  buildings,  while  we 
have  inefficient  public  officers  to  direct  or  superin- 
tend. Nothing  can  be  done  to  accommodate  the 
public  unless  there  is  a  chance  to  make  something 
out  of  it.  .  .  .  If  a  movement  for  public  accom- 
modation is  suggested,  out  comes  the  conservative 
or  opposition  press,  to  show  what  would  legitimate- 
ly cost  $150,000  would,  if  conducted  by  these  ineffi- 
cient officers,  cost  the  city  $250,000  to  $300,000. 
.  .  .  The  great  mass  of  confusion  and  corrup- 
tion, the  crowded  state,  and  especially  the  want  of 
system  which  now  and  for  a  long  time  have  dis- 
graced some  of  our  public  markets  .  .  .  have 
been  produced  by  the  selection  and  appointment  of 
inefficient  public  officers/' 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE         107 

In  1873  the  Superintendent  of  Markets  was 
Thomas  Farrington  DeVoe,  for  many  years  a 
butcher-stall  keeper  at  Nos.  7  and  9  Jefferson  Mar- 
ket. Author  of  "The  Market  Book,"  just  quoted, 
and  other  works  relating  to  marketing,  DeVoe  is 
the  one  conspicuous  figure  in  the  history  of  New 
York's  markets,  both  as  official  and  writer  in  the 
interests  of  the  buying  public.  In  his  "Report  Upon 
the  Present  Conditions  of  the  Public  Markets" 
(1873),  writing  to  Andrew  H.  Green,  Comptroller, 
he  says : 


"The  first  and  great  fault  has  been  with  the  city 
authorities,  by  their  not  providing  buildings  that 
would  be  a  credit  to  our  city,  or  otherwise  the  pres- 
ent buildings  should  have  been  kept  in  proper  order 
and  repair.  The  city  should  have  not  only  replaced 
these  with  suitable  erections,  but  also  placed  one  or 
more  such  in  every  ward  of  our  long  neglected  city, 
and  in  places  that  would  be  most  convenient  to  our 
citizens,  so  that  provisions  of  every  kind  used  for 
human  food  could  or  should  be  forced  by  law  to  be 
taken  into  these  several  marts,  where  they  should 
be  properly  inspected  or  supervised  daily,  which  can 
only  be  done  successfully  in  large  quantities  thus 
collected  and  exposed. 

"In  a  populous  city  like  New  York,  the  residents 
should  be  protected,  as  well  as  have  equal  accommo- 
dations served  to  them  in  all  public  markets,  and 
I  would  suggest  that  measures  be  taken  to  establish 
them  by  selecting  a  number  of  practical  men  from 


io8         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

our  several  public  markets  to  assist  in  locating  such 
buildings  where  most  required,  or  at  points  most 
accessible  to  the  greatest  number  of  citizens." 

In  "The  Market  Book"  (page  402),  DeVoe 
wrote : 

"Prior  to  the  year  1825  one  clerk  of  the  market 
attended  to  the  duties  of  the  collection  of  money, 
and  in  fact  had  the  whole  charge  of  this  market 
and  five  others,  without  the  aid  of  a  'Superintend- 
ent  of  Markets',  viz. :  Greenwich,  Spring  Street, 
Centre,  Essex,  Grand  Street,  and  Gouverneur  Mar- 
kets. ...  At  the  present  time  we  are  saddled 
with  a  clerk  to  each  market,  besides  collectors  and 
a  Superintendent." 

In  the  same  vein,  March,  1912,  testifying  before 
Governor  Dix's  Food  Investigation  Commission, 
President  Carl  Koelsch,  of  the  Merchants'  Asso- 
ciation of  Washington  Market,  complained : 

"The  city  manages  the  public  markets  very  badly. 
The  Superintendent  estimated  the  annual  expense  of 
cleaning  and  sweeping  Washington  market  at  $10,- 
ooo.  I  would  take  the  contract  myself  at  $5,000  a 
year  and  make  money.  There  are  a  lot  of  city  em- 
ployes standing  around  and  getting  in  every  one's 
way." 

Maladministration  of  the  market-houses,  it  is 
thus  seen,  has  for  half  a  century  been  one  cause 
for  the  failure  of  New  York's  municipal  market 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         109 

system.  City  officials  frequently  admit,  or  declare, 
this  fact.  In  the  report  of  the  Assistant  Sanitary 
Superintendent  to  E.  M.  Grout,  Comptroller,  Jan- 
uary 19,  1903  ("City  Record"),  criticism  was  of- 
fered of  the  division  of  authority  exercised  by  the 
Superintendent  of  Markets  and  the  Superintendent 
of  Public  Buildings.  On  the  same  point,  the  State 
Commission's  Market  Committee,  1912  (page  23), 
says  that  the  Borough  Presidents  supervise  the  gen- 
eral care  of  markets,  the  Street  Cleaning  Depart- 
ment sweeps  them,  the  city  Comptroller  fixes  and 
collects  the  rentals,  the  Weights  and  Measures  De- 
partment inspects  the  scales  and  measures,  the 
Board  of  Health  inspects  milk  and  provisions,  and 
the  District  Attorney  looks  after  undue  charges,  dis- 
criminations by  carriers,  and  complaints  against 
combinations  and  monopolists.  Several  of  the  offi- 
cials, in  my  interviews  with  them,  1912,  spoke  of 
the  chaotic  situation  regarding  licenses.  Imagine  a 
railroad  run  on  such  official  "co-ordination"! 

The  fallacy  of  trying  to  show  that  a  market 
"pays,"  in  the  sense  of  yielding  current  interest  on 
the  city's  investment  in  it,  has  mixed  up  the  book- 
keeping of  New  York  Market  Superintendents, 
from  long  before  DeVoe's  day.  While  in  1912  the 
Superintendent  officially  reported,  in  accordance 


no         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

with  the  methods  of  bookkeeping  coming  down 
from  his  predecessors,  that  New  York's  market 
system  in  1911  incurred  a  deficit  of  $86,656,  he 
later  stated  in  the  newspapers  that  this  amount  was 
made  through  errors  in  capitalizing  sites,  the  true 
loss  being  only  $27,000. 

But  beyond  maladministration  are  other  funda- 
mental causes  of  the  decline  of  city  market-houses, 
causes  not  confined  to  the  experiences  of  New  York. 
One  is  the  difficulty  of  so  locating  new  houses  as 
to  give  the  best  continuous  accommodation  to 
changing  neighborhoods.  Another  is  that  the  mar- 
kets do  not  bear  the  same  relation  to  consumers  in 
general  that  they  did  a  generation  ago;  such  insti- 
tutions as  the  pushcart,  the  private  central  stores 
and  the  telephone  to  the  grocer  having  come  up  to 
take  away  basket-carrying  customers.  A  third  fac- 
tor, perhaps  of  the  first  importance,  has  been  change 
in  the  source  and  methods  of  supply.  New  York's 
daily  provisioning  now  comes  from  an  area  that 
covers,  in  several  respects,  all  of  America,  and  in  a 
few  respects  the  entire  world.  Car-load  lots,  even 
train-load  lots,  of  a  single  kind  of  fruit  or  produce, 
coming  hundreds  of  miles,  have  taken  the  place  of 
nearby  farmers'  truck-loads  of  varied  greens,  as 
seen  fifty  years  ago.  Proposals  for  improving  city 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         m 

marketing  must   include  adaptation  to  these  new 
conditions. 

Either  of  the  three  last-named  weakening  influ- 
ences would  be  sufficient  to  account  in  good  part 
for  New  York's  decadent  public  market  system.  On 
the  first  point — 'maladministration — not  only  has  the 
city,  through  the  inefficiency  of  its  government, 
been  unable  to  reach  out  into  the  new  wards  to  keep 
up  its  markets  with  the  growth  of  population,  but 
it  has  been  a  wasteful  loser  both  in  the  location  of 
the  one  considerable  new  market  it  has  built  in  the 
last  century  and  in  the  slowness  with  which  it  has 
lopped  off  its  manifestly  old  and  well-nigh  useless 
markets.  The  grand  modern  market  misplaced 
thirty  years  ago  at  the  foot  of  East  Seventeenth 
street  at  a  cost  of  $800,000,  having  at  the  end  of 
a  few  years  only  sufficient  stalls  rented  to  bring  in 
a  revenue  of  $800,  became  the  stables  of  the  Street 
Cleaning  Department.  Catherine,  Franklin,  Centre, 
Clinton,  Tompkins,  Essex,  Gouverneur,  and  Union 
markets,  decades  after  they  would  have  been  trans- 
ferred to  other  uses  had  they  been  the  property  of 
private  corporations,  were  abandoned  or  torn  down, 
some  to  be  replaced  with  buildings  urgently  needed 
by  other  city  departments.  As  a  contrast,  the  big 
New  York  Central  Railroad's  West  Thirty-fourth 


ii2        ^lARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

street  market,  when  it  failed  to  pay,  went  out  of 
commission  speedily.  With  regard  to  the  public 
market-houses  now  remaining,  the  old  Washington 
market  retailers  deal  largely  with  down-town  res- 
taurants and  New  Jersey  commuters;  Fulton  mar- 
ket has  lost  more  than  half  its  trade  in  twenty- five 
years;  Jefferson  is  almost  abandoned,  while  at  the 
West  Washington-Gansevoort  Market  and  the  Wal- 
labout  Market  in  Brooklyn,  the  trade  is  almost  en- 
tirely at  wholesale  or  in  large  lots. 

Thus  we  get  a  glimpse  of  what  new  local  munici- 
pal market-houses  would  have  to  contend  against  in 
New  York,  even  were  they  well  placed  to  start  with, 
and  economically  administered  in  the  first  flush  of 
reform.  Besides,  the  stallkeepers  would  be  handi- 
capped by  restricted  space.  Their  expenses  for  cart- 
ing goods  from  the  wholesale  centres,  and  for  what- 
ever they  should  deliver,  would  be  much  the  same  as 
those  of  retail  storekeepers.  Without  immediate 
facilities  for  cold  storage,  they  would  be  unable  to 
lay  in  heavy  stocks  ahead. 

From  our  observations  of  the  effects  of  freedom 
for  the  pushcart  and  the  semi-weekly  or  tri-weekly 
open-air  market  it  may  reasonably  be  expected  that, 
with  this  method  alone  of  bringing  consumer  near 
producer  brought  into  operation,  New  York's  prob- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         113 

lem  of  marketing,  and  of  its  market  prices  of  food- 
stuffs, would  be  so  changed  as  to  cause  radical 
alterations  in  the  plans  for  costly  market-house 
systems  now  officially,  or  semi-officially,  before  the 
community.  Let  the  masses  in  the  city  have  oppor- 
tunity to  help  themselves.  Let  the  small  street  deal- 
ers and  the  open-air  market-people,  who  would 
quickly  appear,  show  the  part  they  can  play  in  civic 
and  domestic  economy. 

Before  building  public  market-houses,  the  prob- 
able influence  on  their  business  springing  from  or- 
dinary mercantile  forms  of  marketing  foodstuffs 
which  are  now  developing  must  be  duly  weighed. 
The  large  private  markets  of  New  York  have  per- 
haps made  only  a  beginning  with  their  possibilities. 
Co-operation,  so  often  a  failure,  may  yet  catch  our 
wage-workers. 


VII.  CUTS  MADE  AND  TO  BE  MADE  IN 
THE  HIGH  COST  OF  MIDDLEMEN. 

BY  having  under  our  eye  a  classification  of  the 
usual  items  in  family  expenditure,  we  shall  the  bet- 
ter see  the  economies  in  purchasing  provisions 
through  new  marketing,  mercantile  and  co-opera- 
tive methods. 

The  percentage  of  outlay  for  the  average  of 
1,189  normal  Massachusetts  families  in  1903  ran 
thus  (Eighteenth  Annual  Report,  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Labor)  : 

Food    40.90      Lighting    1.27 

Rent    20.95      Sundries    20.02 

Clothing    13.12 

Fuel   3.74  100.00 

The  food  budget  alone  averaged  $370.20  for  253 
Massachusetts  families  in  1901,  according  to  the 
Federal  Commissioner.  This  is  higher  than  his  es- 
timate of  $326.90  for  2,567  workingmen's  families 
in  different  parts  of  the  country  for  the  same  year, 
but  which,  he  says,  became  $374.75  in  1907  on  the 

rise  of  prices.    On  the  basis  of  the  $370.20  in  1901 

114 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         115 

he  gave  as  follows  the  percentages  for  the  various 
articles  of  food  purchased : 

Beef    21.8      Molasses    0.7 

Hog    products 12.8      Flour  and  meal 6.7 

Other    meat 4.3      Bread    2.2 

Fish    5.3      Rice   0.5 

Poultry   3.5      Potatoes    3.0 

Eggs    3-9      Other  vegetables 2.7 

Milk  8.0      Fruit    2.7 

Butter   8.7  Vinegar,     pickles     and 

Cheese    0.7          condiments    i.i 

Tea    0.8      Other  food   3.9 

Coffee    1.2 

Sugar    5.5  100.00 

(Of  the  beef,  about  40  per  cent  was  for  salted 
kinds;  of  the  hog  products,  about  55  per  cent  for 
salted  and  lard.  Half  the  meat  could  therefore  be 
sold  without  ice-box  plant.) 

This  table  shows  that  at  least  40,  and  perhaps  50, 
per  cent  of  all  the  articles  it  represents,  even  if  not 
including  fresh  meats,  milk,  bread  and  the  dry 
groceries,  might  be  put  on  sale  in  open-air  markets. 
A  reduction  of  25  per  cent  on  retail  grocers'  prices 
for  the  articles  sold  would  yield  to  New  Yorkers 
having  a  food  budget  of  only  $400  a  saving  of  $50 
a  year.  Grocers'  prices  would  be  affected  by  the 
market  cut.  Granted,  the  Commissioner's  table  may 
be  wanting  in  fine  shades  of  exactness — for  in- 
stance, vegetables  taking  a  percentage  which  seems 


n6        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

low,  and  ice  and  table  liquids  not  among  the  items. 
However,  as  official  data  it  is  a  basis  for  estimate. 
The  reader  may  correct  on  his  own  experience. 
Granted,  as  well,  that  the  25  per  cent  might  prove 
in  the  end  no  more  than  15;  it  is  worth  while  to 
save  $30  a  year  through  one  point  in  management. 

Next,  as  to  classes  of  provisions  some  of  which 
may  not  be  bought  in  open-air  markets.  These 
with  others  generally  are  on  sale  in  the  large  pri- 
vate markets  rapidly  developed  in  recent  years  in 
both  European  and  American  cities.  The  very  men- 
tion of  this  form  of  market  excites  the  hostility  of 
small  retailers.  They  see  in  it  somehow  the  same 
destroying  enemy  that  hand-taught  industrial  wage- 
workers  confront  in  the  labor-saving  machinery 
which  takes  away  their  jobs  and  leaves  them  among 
the  unskilled.  The  leading  types  of  this  market  are 
the  provision  section  of  the  department  store,  the 
large  retail  provision  house,  and  the  chain  stores, 
all  having  almost  an  unlimited  area  of  delivery. 

The  New  York  State  Commission's  Market  Com- 
mittee (page  10)  gives  these  two  points  among  its 
findings  :  ( i )  The  addition  to  the  cost  of  products 
when  handled  by  wholesalers,  jobbers,  and  retailers 
is  approximately  40  to  45  per  cent.  (2)  The  addi- 
tion to  cost,  due  to  operation,  including  delivery,  in 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         117 

stores  of  the  department  type  seen  by  the  commit- 
tee, is  only  1 8  to  20  per  cent.  These  big  stores  are 
spreading  in  America,  as  in  many  European  cities, 
notably  in  Paris  and  Berlin.  Must  not  a  large  part 
of  their  saving  of  more  than  one-half  in  handling 
finally  pass  over  to  the  consumers? 

The  large  modern  private  market  holds  decided 
advantages  for  retailing  over  the  small  grocer, 
butcher,  baker,  and  delicatessen  dealer. 

( i )  It  buys  in  the  quantities  which  command  the 
lowest  purchasing  prices,  a  source  of  profit  former- 
ly open  only  to  the  wholesaler  or  large  importer. 
"We  sent  one  of  our  buyers  to  the  west  coast  of 
France,"  said  the  manager  of  one  of  the  department 
stores  to  me,  "where  he  bought  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars' worth  of  sardines  and  other  small  fish  and  had 
them  boxed  especially  for  us.  We  made  a  'drive' 
of  them  when  they  arrived  here,  giving  the  public 
the  lowest  price  ever  known,  and  the  transaction 
paid  us."  In  another  of  these  stores  the  manager 
said:  "Here  are  thousands  of  boxes  of  macaroni, 
sold  us  by  an  importer,  at  our  price.  The  public 
at  once  gets  the  benefit." 

I  was  conducted  through  several  of  these  great 
private  markets  in  New  York.  In  their  storage- 
rooms,  apart  from  the  stock  exposed  for  sale,  were 


ii8        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

piled,  ceiling  high,  newly  arrived  foodstuffs  in 
boxes,  barrels,  and  crates,  in  amounts  to  be  reck- 
oned only  by  tons  or  thousands,  a  force  of  laborers 
active  in  unpacking  goods  and  carrying  them  to  the 
sales-rooms.  The  manager,  at  each  of  the  stores 
visited,  in  pointing  out  the  huge  quantities  of  vari- 
ous articles  in  stock,  told  where  they  had  been 
bought,  in  Europe  or  America,  by  what  experts  in 
each  line,  and  what  were  the  means  of  acquiring 
them  cheaply,  either  in  point  of  purchase  or  trans- 
portation. Cash  terms,  buying  a  dealer's,  or  manu- 
facturer's, or  producer's  entire  stock,  and  shipping 
by  car  or  cargo  lots — these  points  of  themselves  in- 
sured a  profit.  Besides  the  storage-room  at  their 
sales-houses,  some  of  the  greater  establishments 
have  enormous  warehouse  space  on  or  near  the 
river  piers.  One  claim  made  by  all  the  managers 
was  positive: 

"We  eliminate  a  line  of  middlemen — wholesalers, 
jobbers,  speculators.  Through  us  there  is  but  one 
link,  or  at  most  two,  between  producer  and  con- 
sumer. More  than  that,  our  agents  are  constantly 
on  the  look-out  for  bargains,  anywhere.  When 
there  is  an  over-production  of  Maine  corn,  or 
French  wine,  or  Western  eggs,  or  of  a  big  pro- 
ducer's canned  goods,  preserves  or  pickles,  or  of 
another's  marmalades,  or  chutney  sauce,  or  jarred 
ginger,  anything  salable  in  our  various  lines,  we 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE         119 

buy  heavily.  For  certain  staple  goods  we  make 
contracts  seasons  ahead,  a  benefit  for  the  men  who 
thus  supply  us,  for  their  steadily  employed  work- 
men, for  ourselves,  and  our  customers." 

(2)  This  modern  market  has  its  special  features. 
On  one  or  two  floors,  each  a  vast  hall,  the  market- 
ing housewife  finds  all  the  usual  varieties  of  food- 
stuffs. The  salesmen  make  a  note  of  anything  not 
in  stock  called  for  by  customers.  Any  grade,  or 
brand,  or  weight,  or  size,  or  quality,  according  to 
the  kind  of  goods  sought,  may  be  asked  for.  At 
"order  tables"  the  housekeeper,  with  the  help  of  a 
pile  of  samples,  may  sit  and  check  off  her  purchase 
list.  A  force  of  switchboard  girls  take  orders  by 
telephone.  Customers  are  instructed  in  buying  by 
floor-walkers  at  each  section,  or  in  economizing  by 
specialists  at  "demonstrating  booths,"  or  in  cooking 
by  a  professional  cook  at  a  model  kitchen.  Lunch- 
eon, to  suit  all  purses,  may  be  had  at  several  count- 
ers. Said  a  manager : 

"Observe  that  our  clerks  and  salespeople  are 
quite  continually  busy.  When  the  'phone  girls  are 
not  taking  down  orders  coming  by  wire  they  are 
writing  out  in  duplicate  the  orders  already  received. 
When  the  packers  are  not  doing  up  goods,  they  are 
unpacking  or  writing  up  their  books.  Customers, 
in  person  or  by  mail  or  'phone,  are  thus  being  wait- 


120        MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE 

ed  on,  our  time  not  wasted  in  waiting  for  them.  As 
to  our  relations  with  patrons,  we  tell  them,  in  print 
and  by  word  of  mouth,  the  absolute  facts  about 
goods,  and  rely  upon  maintaining  the  trade  of  in- 
telligent people  on  that  plan.  We  cannot  afford  to 
practice  barking,  or  chaffering,  or  substituting,  or 
having  two  prices,  or  selling  under  weight  or  in 
poor  quality.  You  will  find  all  the  big  stores  wholly 
independent  of  the  inspectors  of  any  of  the  city  or 
Federal  departments.  Our  business  is  in  the  open. 
We  court  publicity,  advertise,  show  our  goods  un- 
reservedly to  experts  in  every  line.  The  pure  food 
laws  are  welcome  to  us;  we  anticipated  them;  we 
have  observed  their  spirit  for  years.  We  try  to 
educate  our  customers  with  regard  to  qualities  and 
weights,  or  measures.  We  advise  them  as  to  the 
best  times  to  buy,  according  to  season  or  market 
fluctuations.  No  other  line  of  retailing  anything 
that  the  public  buys  is  today  on  a  higher  plane  than 
the  provision  department  of  the  large  stores." 


(3)  The  distributing  system  of  the  big  private 
market,  especially  when  merely  a  part  of  the  gen- 
eral delivery  of  a  department  store,  covers  an  area 
of  country,  and  hence  a  body  of  customers,  not 
possible  to  be  reached  with  equal  cheapness  by 
minor  dealers.  Some  parts  of  Manhattan,  Brook- 
lyn, and  Jersey  City  are  thus  covered  by  one  big 
store  four  times  a  day.  At  least  one  delivery  every 
twenty-four  hours  reaches  all  points  within  twenty 
miles  of  the  central  house.  Three  times  is  an  order 


MARKETS    FOR    THE    PEOPLE          121 

usually  taken  to  a  customer's  residence  on  failure 
to  deliver  it  at  a  first  and  a  second  call.  The  drivers 
and  other  delivery  men  are  in  uniform;  the  wagons 
bear  the  name  of  the  firm  owning  them;  sanitary 
or  otherwise  safe  methods  of  packing  are  observed 
— examples  of  devices  to  fix  responsibility  and  in- 
sure confidence.  Finally,  "We  take  back  anything 
which  a  customer  may  return,  alleging  dissatisfac- 
tion," said  one  of  the  managers.  "It  is  a  part  of 
our  advertising.  We  do  not  lose  by  it.  We  have 
found  that  in  general  the  public  is  sincere  and 
honest." 

These  points  of  desirability  to  consumers  explain 
the  rapid  rise  in  New  York  of  the  large  private 
provision  markets.  In  general,  they  are  yearly  add- 
ing to  the  variety  of  their  stock.  Some  now  deal 
in  fish,  poultry,  fresh  meat,  fruit  and  butter,  cheese 
and  eggs,  besides  the  various  kinds  of  preserves  and 
other  fruit  products  in  jars  or  cans.  The  big  new 
store's  social  office  is  comparable  with  that  per- 
formed by  the  restaurant  and  hotel  companies  de- 
veloped in  the  large  cities,  mostly  in  the  last  twenty- 
five  years.  In  the  "central"  provision  store,  in  the 
"chain"  of  restaurants,  in  the  "line"  of  hotels,  alike, 
the  patron  learns  to  rely  on  freshness  and  whole- 
someness  in  the  eatables,  discipline  in  the  service, 


122         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

attractiveness  of  plant  and  its  appointments,  and 
general  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the  manage- 
ment. In  the  standard  of  wares  and  service  lie 
their  dividends. 

From  the  sort  of  railing  against  these  market 
stores  which  one  occasionally  hears,  it  seems  shock- 
ing to  some  minds  to  propose  patronizing  a  big 
house  in  preference  to  a  little  one.  Perhaps  an 
effect,  this,  of  attempts  by  small  retailers  to  turn 
public  opinion  against  their  great  rivals.  First 
avowing  their  peculiar  trade  ethics,  as  explained  by 
a  Washington  grocer,  before  the  Lodge  Committee 
(Report,  page  807),  when  he  said  that  "it  wasn't 
right"  for  a  wholesaler  or  a  jobber  to  sell  to  a  con- 
sumer by  the  case,  sack,  or  barrel,  at  wholesale 
prices,  the  small  dealers  apply  rules  of  like  import 
to  stores  whose  fault  to  them  is  merely  great  size. 
Or,  it  may  be  that,  in  the  eyes  of  some  classes  of 
social  reformers,  whatever  is  big  is  "monopolistic." 
Yet,  of  a  certainty,  such  good  people  will  travel  by 
rail  rather  than  by  stage-coach,  take  Sunday  news- 
papers whose  large  circulation  insures  many  pages 
of  varied  reading  instead  of  struggling  virtuous 
little  reform  weeklies,  and  buy  cheap  clothing  made 
in  a  factory  employing  a  thousand  hands  in  prefer- 
ence to  handing  over  a  stiff  price  to  the  custom 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         123 

tailor  around  the  corner  who  cannot  touch  ready- 
made  "reduced  figures."  As  to  monopoly,  the  big 
store  enjoys  no  legal  privilege  or  franchise,  the 
foundations  of  monopoly. 

And  now  a  word  for  an  infant  step  in  consum- 
ers' association.  While  fresh  meat  is  on  sale  at 
some  of  the  big  stores,  and  might  be  had  in  open- 
air  markets,  at  prices  lower  than  the  small  butcher's, 
much  of  the  difference  between  the  wholesaler's 
price  and  the  retailer's  can  directly  be  saved  through 
the  combination  of  a  few  buyers.  Twenty  heads 
of  families,  representing  100  consumers,  by  club- 
bing together  can  buy  a  side  of  beef,  or  a  dressed 
pig,  or  a  whole  mutton,  and  on  dividing  it  among 
themselves  make  a  considerable  saving.  It  is  fre- 
quently assumed  that  the  packing  houses  forbid 
their  agents  to  sell  to  others  than  retailers,  hotel- 
keepers,  and  similar  heavy  buyers,  but  while  super- 
intending the  buying  for  from  sixty  to  seventy-five 
persons  for  the  better  part  of  a  year  I  procured 
sides  of  beef  and  other  meats  in  similar  quantities 
without  difficulty.  Dr.  C.  F.  Langworthy,  expert 
in  charge  of  government  nutrition  investigations, 
gives  encouragement  on  this  point :  "By  buying  in 
large  quantities  under  certain  conditions,  it  may  be 
possible  to  procure  meat  at  better  prices  than  those 


124        MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE 

which  ordinarily  prevail  in  the  retail  market. "  Mr. 
I.  T.  Pryor,  addressing  the  Texas  Cattle  Growers' 
Association,  two  years  ago,  said :  "Thousands  of 
retail  butchers  in  this  country  sell  one-half  of  a 
beef  or  less  each  day,  and  must  make  sufficient 
profit  on  this  small  quantity  to  meet  the  large  ex- 
penses incident  to  city  life."  Our  veteran  ex-Sec- 
retary of  Agriculture,  James  Wilson,  testified,  as  to 
meat,  before  the  Lodge  Committee:  "We  found 
that  the  retailer  added  38  per  cent,  on  an  average, 
in  fifty  cities,  more  than  he  paid  the  wholesaler." 

Twenty  heads  of  families — Twenty  Neighbors, 
let  us  call  them — in  an  informal  organization,  might 
jointly  manage  much  of  their  marketing  to  a  com- 
mon advantage.  They  could  be  co-religionists  or 
co-nationalists,  as  Jews  or  Italians,  whose  customs 
require  certain  foods  not  usually  in  demand  by  the 
general  public.  Or,  they  might  be  members  of  the 
same  church  or  school  of  social  reform,  or  fellow 
trade  unionists,  or  simply  neighbors.  Supporters  of 
temperance  principles,  having  no  drink  bill,  would 
have  the  surest  play  for  joint  economies.  Twenty 
Neighbors  could  meet  once  a  fortnight,  or  even  a 
month,  in  one  another's  homes,  saving  office  rent. 
There  need  be  no  paid  officers.  In  every  group  of 
twenty  wage-workers  or  other  persons  striving  to 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          125 

gain  a  living,  experience  will  testify,  there  are  in- 
variably several  men  and  women  ready  and  anxious 
to  perform  unpaid  altruistic  labor.  In  fact,  certain 
forms  of  duty  in  such  a  group  could  pass  from  one 
to  the  other  down  almost  the  entire  list  of  members. 
All  would  be  inclined  to  gather  points  of  informa- 
tion for  the  common  benefit. 

Twenty  Neighbors  on  coming  together  could  be- 
gin their  mutually  helpful  marketing  at  once.  No 
need  to  wait  for  unwieldy  organizations  of  bril- 
liant "prospectus"  promise,  nor  for  the  blessings  to 
be  showered  on  us  by  our  next  municipal  admin- 
istration! They  could  let  one  or  two,  or  more,  re- 
liable wagon  or  pushcart  fruit  and  produce  vendors 
know  that  cash  and  fair  criticism  awaited  delivery 
of  orders  at  their  several  homes.  They  could  have 
a  postcard  system,  operated  by  the  secretary,  of 
notifying  members  of  passing  bargains  in  necessa- 
ries. They  could  listen  to  the  little  grocer  should 
he  promise  to  do  as  well  by  them  as  the  big  store, 
and  permit  him  to  back  up  his  word  with  material 
proof.  They  could  hear  talks  on  pure  foods,  on 
labor-saving  kitchen  devices  and  methods,  and  on 
the  experiences  of  fellow-members  in  buying.  For 
advisory  purposes,  the  group  might  at  times  com- 


126         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

municate  with  other  organizations  of  consumers, 
and  with  producers  as  well. 

In  a  spirit  of  mutual  helpfulness,  instead  of  under 
the  feverish  influence  of  partisan  politics  or  the 
motive  of  unfair  combinations  for  individual  gain, 
they  might  listen  to  discussions  of  the  tariff,  of  an 
improved  parcels  post,  or  of  municipal  and  other 
wholesale  markets  and  cold  storage  warehouses,  or 
of  a  State  or  national  department  of  markets,  or  of 
the  various  extensions  of  true  co-operation  and 
labor  co-partnership,  or  of  co-operative  banking, 
farming  and  profit-sharing.  Attention  might  be 
given  to  the  practicability  and  social  value  of  such 
methods  as  Mr.  Edison's  proposed  slot  machine 
market-house,  or  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Peters'  philan- 
thropic selling  depot,  or  of  various  plans  for  wage- 
earners'  co-operative  workshops.  With  success  and 
experience,  groups  of  Twenty  Neighbors  might  de- 
velop into  co-operative  societies  or  at  least  form 
part  of  a  Federation  of  Consumers. 

In  Manhattan,  among  our  million,  Twenty  Neigh- 
bors could  today  turn  the  tables  on  several  classes 
of  middlemen  who  to  so  large  an  extent  have  con- 
sumers in  their  clutches.  Buying  in  wholesale  quan- 
tities and  subdividing  among  themselves,  they  could, 
in  a  single  experiment  of  cutting  up  a  side  of  beef 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         127 

in  twenty  parts  of  equal  value,  at  once  illustrate 
the  gains  by  the  process,  test  possibilities  in  simple 
co-operation,  and  set  interested  middlemen  to  think- 
ing. Their  plan  of  co-operation  might  develop  in- 
definitely. 

The  first  Secretary  of  the  Woolwich  Royal  Ar- 
senal Co-operative  Society,  today  with  more  than 
26,000  members  and  two  and  a  half  million  dollars 
in  assets,  told  me  that  for  several  years  at  the  be- 
ginning he  kept  the  society's  store  in  a  single  room 
in  his  dwelling,  while  working  as  a  machinist  in  the 
arsenal.  Twenty  Neighbors  could  give  mail  order 
houses  a  trial,  acquaint  their  members  with  the 
artifices  more  or  less  common  among  retailers,  send 
committees  to  pure  food  and  similar  shows,  wield 
some  influence  on  public  opinion  through  letters  to 
the  press,  summon  before  them  unfair  dealers,  study 
the  package  goods  trade,  and  collect  reference 
books  relating  to  food  and  marketing.  The  middle- 
man fears  the  instructed  consumer. 

A  society  of  Twenty  Neighbors  could,  at  any 
time,  with  positive  and  immediate  effect,  decide 
what  articles  of  household  consumption  not  to  buy. 
As  an  example,  it  could,  according  to  the  season  or 
the  known  stock  in  the  hands  of  producers,  refuse 
to  pay  more  than  its  own  price  for  certain  staple 


128        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

commodities.  It  could  aid  in  practicing  whatever 
is  valuable  to  masses  of  consumers  in  the  "let  alone" 
policy.  It  could,  to  the  extent  of  its  patronage,  re- 
verse the  present  principle  of  fixing  prices  in  retail- 
ing, which,  according  to  the  manager  of  a  Boston 
fishing  company,  testifying  before  the  Massachu- 
setts Commission,  is  "that  dealers  are  governed 
largely  by  consideration  of  what  the  customer  will 
stand."  That  is,  it  would  grant  its  custom  to  a 
dealer  only  on  his  putting  down  his  prices  as  low 
as  he  could  stand.  Purveyors  would  compete  for 
whatever  custom  it  should  influence. 

In  "Co-operative  Movements  Among  Farmers," 
("Annals,  American  Academy,"  March,  1912), 
Prof.  E.  K.  Eyerby,  Massachusetts  Agricultural 
College,  speaks  of  farmers'  co-operative  societies 
which,  "while  nominally  unsuccessful,  had  yet 
caused  the  middleman  in  his  struggle  for  self-pres- 
ervation to  lower  his  prices  very  greatly.  He  had, 
for  example,  been  obliged  to  reduce  the  price  of 
reapers  from  $275  to  $175,  of  threshers  from  $300 
to  $200,  of  wagons  from  $150  to  $90,  of  sewing 
machines  from  $75  to  $40.  Potential  prices  from 
the  co-operators  were  able  to  keep  permanently  low 
prices  that  were  intended  to  be  so  only  temporarily." 
The  French  "Ligue  des  Consommateurs"  has  to  its 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         129 

credit  a  series  of  victories  over  fraudulent,  exorbi- 
tant, or  tricky  public  purveyors  of  all  sorts,  even 
compelling  a  score  of  the  theatres  of  Paris  to  mod- 
ify some  of  their  time-honored  grafts  on  playgoers. 
Twenty  Neighbors  might  buy  direct  from  either  a 
single  producer  or  an  association  of  producers,  in 
city  or  country.  In  a  group  of  twenty  is  usually  at 
least  one  person  who  knows  of  a  farmer,  or  poultry 
raiser,  or  general  provision  man,  who  can  ship  his 
products  through  to  consumers,  in  hampers  to  in- 
dividuals or  in  bulk  to  a  group.  The  New  York 
State  Department  of  Agriculture  in  1911  asked  sev- 
eral hundred  farmers  and  residents  of  our  larger 
towns  and  cities  for  detailed  information* as  to  di- 
rect trade  between  producer  and  consumer.  Of  217 
farmers  replying,  158  reported  that  they  had  re- 
ceived better  returns  by  direct  sales  than  by  other 
means,  24  were  in  doubt  and  24  gave  negative  an- 
swers. Of  231  consumers,  121  reported  a  saving  by 
direct  purchases,  36  no  saving,  and  35  were  in 
doubt.  These  reports,  covering  unsystematic  indi- 
vidual efforts,  contain  promise  for  group  work  sys- 
tematized. Moreover,  when  one  is  acquainted  with 
the  associated  buying  and  selling  of  foodstuffs  in 
Europe — especially  in  Denmark,  Ireland  and  Switz- 
erland— such  reports  as  this  from  our  New  York 


130        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

Agricultural  Department  but  testify  to  the  field  for 
progress  which  we,  half  educated  in  this  respect, 
have  yet  before  us. 

A  group  of  twenty  as  a  unit  for  a  larger  organi- 
zation, temporary  or  permanent,  has  advantages — 
in  promoting  confidence,  in  making  members  ac- 
quaintances, in  presenting  barriers  to  disintegrating 
influences,  in  protecting  one  another  against  being 
committed  to  wild  propositions  or  to  any  ventures 
foreign  to  the  purposes  of  the  organization. 

It  would  be  interesting  sociological  testimony,  the 
story  of  Twenty  Neighbors  for  a  single  year.  The 
group's  experiences  might  answer  many  questions 
as  to  individual  betterment — in  financial  standing, 
in  things  learned,  in  happiness,  in  character. 

The  big  thoroughly  equipped  foodstuffs  store 
dealing  with  customers  in  an  unlimited  area  has 
stricken  from  the  list  many  a  petty  middleman.  Co- 
operation, the  elementary  principles  of  which  are 
illustrated  in  our  "Twenty  Neighbors,"  has  in  some 
countries  diverted  profits  amounting  to  tens  of 
millions  annually  from  the  pockets  of  middlemen  to 
those  of  consumers.  Can  co-operation  do  the  same 
in  America? 


VIII.     IS    CO-OPERATION    COMING? 
HINDRANCES. 

CO-OPERATION,  on  the  British  system,  is  a  con- 
sumers' movement.  In  setting  up  a  co-operative 
society,  a  body  of  intending  buyers  organize  them- 
selves to  conduct  a  business  of  their  own,  usually 
at  first  a  provision  store,  and,  acting  through  a 
committee  elected  from  their  membership,  they  re- 
verse the  order  of  the  steps  taking  place  in  initiat- 
ing ordinary  private  undertakings,  the  customer  in 
these  having  last  and  least  interest.  To  begin  ac- 
tual work  the  co-operators  themselves  supply  the 
capital,  in  small  shares,  usually  $5 ;  then  they  hire, 
direct,  and  supervise  the  manager  of  shop  details 
and  his  assistants;  they  decide  from  time  to  time 
what  commodities  their  store  shall  have  in  stock; 
they  watch  the  trend  of  sales;  they  take  the  risk 
of  experiments;  and  they  reach  out  for  new  custo- 
mers,— that  is,  new  members,  who  also  must  be- 
come shareholders.  At  stated  periods,  usually 
once  in  three  months,  the  co-operators  divide  their 
accumulated  cash  surplus  over  the  sum  of  all  costs, 

131 


i32        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

capital  having  been  accorded  current  interest. 
Each  shareholder's  dividend  is  paid  on  the  amount 
of  his  purchases  during  the  quarter,  all  buyers 
drawing  at  the  same  rate  of  percentage. 

What  is  this  dividend?  It  is  not  profits.  In  a 
purely  co-operative  store,  this  point  is  to  be  borne 
in  mind,  sales  are  made  only  to  shareholders.  Their 
object  in  fixing  the  selling  prices  so  as  to  bring  in  a 
sum  beyond  the  probable  total  outlay  for  the  stock 
(wholesale  cost,  interest,  rent,  taxes,  light,  heat, 
salaries,  etc.),  is  not  the  absurd  one  of  trying  to 
make  profits  from  themselves,  but  simply  to  form 
a  guaranty,  as  co-operators,  against  loss.  The  sales 
as  made  are  but  a  division,  in  small  lots,  among 
common  owners,  of  commodities  previously  bought 
in  large  lots  through  their  working  capital.  The 
net  balance  over  the  original  outlay  is  but  an  excess 
from  the  advances  in  cash  made  by  members  when 
buying  at  retail.  The  only  equitable  method  for 
dividing  this  excess  is  in  proportion  to  the  value  of 
each  co-operator's  purchases.  In  other  words,  the 
co-operator's  dividend  evidently  is  but  the  comple- 
tion of  a  final  return  to  him,  first  in  goods  and  then 
in  money,  of  the  total  of  his  successive  payments. 

The  dividend,  savings  through  co-operation, 
serves  as  an  indication  of  the  minimum  profits  the 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         133 

individual  dealer  might  have  made  from  the  co-op- 
erators on  the  same  amount  of  purchases.  As  such, 
it  promotes  thrift.  Its  distribution  is  a  stimulus 
even  to  selfish  participants  in  the  co-operative  move- 
ment. But  the  highest  satisfaction  in  co-operation 
is  its  conjunction  of  equity  with  business.  Here  is 
a  principle  embodying  the  possibilities  of  a  social 
evolution.  Voluntary  co-operation,  to  make  a  mod- 
est claim,  may  yet  occupy  most  of  that  vast  field  of 
commerce  which  includes  distributing  to  the  multi- 
tude the  ordinary  necessaries  of  subsistence,  the 
manufactured  supplies  of  the  average  household, 
and  the  ordinary  articles  of  clothing  for  the  family. 
Further,  with  the  firm  footing  already  obtained  in 
this  field  in  some  countries,  co-operation  has  exhib- 
ited potentialities  for  progress  once  denied  it  by  the 
spokesmen  for  conservative  political  economy  and 
by  the  leaders  in  commerce  and  manufactures. 
Merely  to  understand  the  principles  of  true  co-oper- 
ation, and  see  it  in  practice,  brings  about  a  moral 
revolution  in  the  individual  observer,  taught  in  the 
common  experience  of  life  to  regard  business  as 
largely  a  grab  and  a  gamble. 

The  development  of  co-operation  as  now  carried 
on  in  Great  Britain  is  the  story  of  the  Rochdale 
Pioneers'  Society,  the  parent  association,  repeated 


134        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

by  other  societies  many  hundred  times;  that  is, 
adoption  of  the  one  correct  co-operative  principle, 
then  small  beginnings,  and  afterward  a  steady 
growth. 

In  1844  twenty-eight  poor  Rochdale  weavers  on 
strike  started  subscribing  threepence  a  week  toward 
sufficient  capital  to  set  up  a  co-operative  store. 
When  their  number  had  reached  forty  and  their 
capital  £28  ($140),  they  hired  a  small  room  and 
"stocked  it  with  those  things  which  were  most  nec- 
espary."  "So  meagre  was  the  stock,  so  dimly  lighted 
the  store,  that  they  felt  ashamed  to  take  down  the 
shutters." 

The  men  of  that  little  band  were  in  a  humble 
rank  of  wage-workers.  The  leading  citizens  of  their 
community  would  never  have  dreamed  of  placing 
one  of  them  in  a  position  of  public  responsibility. 
But  in  their  discussions  as  to  how  they  might  suc- 
cessfully conduct  their  co-operative  store,  they  de- 
cided to  embody  in  their  rules  certain  equitable,  if 
not  wholly  new,  ideas.  The  principal  of  these,  put 
into  immediate  practice,  were  "the  customers  to  be 
the  sole  proprietors"  and  "dividends  in  proportion 
to  purchases."  Financially  and  morally  these  ideas 
have  proven  among  the  soundest  that  ever  gave 
backbone  to  any  business  system.  That  original 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         135 

Rochdale  Society  has  today  15,000  members,  and 
its  annual  trade  amounts  to  $1,500,000  and  its  divi- 
dends to  $250,000. 

At  the  forty-fourth  annual  Congress  of  the 
British  Co-operative  Union,  held  at  Portsmouth, 
England,  May  27-29,  1912,  returns  were  received 
from  1,531  societies,  of  which  1,407  were  distribu- 
tive and  112  productive.  Springing  from  the  same 
movement,  special  co-operative  organizations  were 
reported  as  dealing  in  insurance,  allotments,  small 
holdings,  motor  service,  and  cottage  buildings.  The 
total  number  of  all  shareholding  members,  as  given 
in  the  year's  report,  was  2,760,591,  an  increase  over 
the  previous  year  of  98,732,  and  in  five  years  more 
than  half  a  million.  As  one  member  may  buy  for 
a  family,  the  individuals  thus  represented  are  fully 
ten  millions,  perhaps  twelve,  one-fourth  or  more 
of  the  entire  population  of  Great  Britain. 

Other  statistics  in  the  report :  Total  annual  trade 
of  the  productive  and  distributive  societies,  $580,- 
000,000;  an  increase  in  ten  years  of  more  than  75 
per  cent.  Capital  of  the  retail  distributive  socie- 
ties, $175,000,000;  dividends  $60,000,000;  capital 
of  the  two  wholesale  societies  (English  and  Scot- 
tish), $11,500,000;  trade,  $178,000,000;  dividends, 
$5,000,000.  Value  of  production  carried  on  by 


136        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

distributive  societies  $60,000,000;  value  of  invest- 
ments of  co-operative  societies  in  house  property, 
$38,500,000.  Productive  co-operative  societies 
numbering  114,  with  a  capital  of  $24,000,000,  and 
having  30,629  employes,  had  a  trade,  in  1911,  of 
$62,000,000.  Aggregate  expenditures  of  all  the 
societies  in  salaries,  wages,  and  establishment 
charges,  exceeded  $45,000,000.  Number  of  em- 
ployes, more  than  100,000.  (The  Board  of  Trade 
Report,  which  includes  societies  not  in  the  Union, 
gives  considerably  higher  figures  for  all  these 
items. ) 

The  British  co-operators  own  ocean  steamships 
and  other  vessels  by  the  score  and  railway  freight 
cars  by  the  hundred.  They  have  purchasing  agen- 
cies in  many  of  the  principal  cities  of  the  world; 
they  buy  in  advance  crops  of  thousands  of  acres, — 
tea  and  coffee  in  the  Orient,  fruit  in  the  European 
Continental  countries,  and  wheat  and  other  prod- 
ucts in  California. 

The  British  Wholesale  Society  grants  the  follow- 
ing advantages  to  the  workers  it  employs :  Healthy 
work-rooms;  trade  union  wages  in  all  cases  where 
unions  exist;  the  best  wages  in  the  neighborhood 
where  there  are  no  unions;  short  hours  (5,407 
women  and  girls  work  48  hours  or  less  a  week)  ; 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         137 

payment  of  wages  in  illness  or  during  holidays; 
working  dresses  for  women  and  girls  occupied  in 
packing  goods;  dining-rooms,  where  meals  are 
served  at  moderate  prices ;  arrangements  for  recrea- 
tion and  amusements ;  annual  picnics,  at  which  each 
employe  present  receives  a  gift;  and  a  savings  fund 
to  which  the  society  contributes  handsomely. 

Within  the  last  twenty  years,  and  with  increas- 
ing rapidity  the  last  ten,  the  British  system  of  co- 
operation, with  certain  modifications  necessitated 
through  national  customs  and  conditions,  has  had  a 
remarkable  development  throughout  the  European 
Continent.  In  Germany  there  are  now  almost  as 
many  co-operators  as  in  Great  Britain;  in  Italy, 
France  and  the  Scandinavian  countries  are  mem- 
bers by  hundreds  of  thousands;  and  even  in  Aus- 
tria, Hungary,  and  Russia  are  numerous  flourish- 
ing societies,  mostly  in  the  towns  and  cities.  The 
co-operators  of  all  countries  are  united,  though 
somewhat  loosely,  in  the  International  Co-operative 
Alliance. 

But,  however  wonderful  the  story  that  statistics 
reveal  of  its  financial  benefits,  the  proven  moral 
merits  of  co-operation  surpass  all  others  in  social 
value.  Co-operation  has  substituted  for  the  idea  of 
providential  nabobs  in  commerce  the  idea  of  a 


1 38        'MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

self-sufficient  democracy.  It  has  shown  how  and 
wherein  the  people  can  do  for  themselves, — origi- 
nate business,  quicken  trade,  attract  custom,  employ 
talent,  eliminate  the  wastes  of  unnecessary  competi- 
tion, and  withal  declare  substantial  dividends.  Its 
committeemen,  in  performing  gratuitously  their 
duties,  render  a  public  service.  Co-operation  is  not 
in  politics.  It  asks  no  privileges.  It  seeks  no  in- 
terference with  any  man  through  force  of  law.  It 
leaves  equally  free  every  road  for  talent  and  enter- 
prise. It  teaches  dreamers  their  impracticabilities, 
tries  out  reformers,  promotes  among  members  a 
neighborly  feeling.  It  lifts  the  mass;  not  the  stock 
gamblers,  nor  shrewd  advertisers,  nor  produce-ex- 
change market-riggers.  Every  co-operator  is  a 
partner,  equal  to  any  other.  All  members  may 
vote  on  every  question  at  society  meetings.  Co- 
operation reduces  the  number  of  middlemen,  abol- 
ishes their  successive  profits,  cuts  loose  from  over- 
advertising,  and  suppresses  the  puffery  of  alleged 
commercial  geniuses.  It  effectually  does  away  with 
the  idea  that  in  common  business  there  lies  any 
foresight  in  management,  talent  in  organization,  or 
skill  in  catering  to  the  public — not  connected  with 
dishonesty — -beyond  the  powers  possessed  and 
evoked  in  an  association  of  ordinary  upright  men. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         139 

It  brings  to  light  enormous  reserves  of  varied  men- 
tal and  moral  force  in  the  wageworking  classes 
never  coming  into  play  in  establishments  dominated 
exclusively  by  a  firm  or  an  individual.  It  contra- 
dicts the  dictum:  "Poor  and  therefore  weak."  It 
offers  convincing  evidence  that  "capital  and  labor 
are  not  essentially  antagonistic,"  since  within  the 
co-operative  organization  both  capital  and  labor  are 
the  instruments  and  possession  of  associated  work- 
ers. Co-operation  changes  the  psychological  atti- 
tude of  men  toward  one  another;  the  mutual  help 
of  fellow-members  supplants  the  mutual  hostility 
or  sinister  rivalry  often  prevailing  among  competi- 
tive merchants  or  workingmen. 

Every  co-operative  society  creates  a  social,  edu- 
cational, and  recreative  centre  for  a  working-class 
community.  The  co-operative  halls  of  Great  Brit- 
ain are  hospitable  to  every  speaker  with  a  promis- 
ing idea,  to  ambitious  youth  seeking  mental  growth, 
to  free  speech,  liberty  of  thought,  and  all  reasonable 
innovation.  A  co-operative  society  must  have  the 
grace  of  individual  and  collective  self-preservation; 
for,  just  as  its  members  prevent  the  adulteration 
of  the  food  they  sell  themselves,  prohibit  misrepre- 
sentation of  their  own  goods,  and  enforce  a  one- 
price  rule,  they  also  conserve  decency  and  avoid 


140        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

extremes  in  their  public  discussions.  Through  their 
common  sense  they  stand  well  with  the  world. 

All  true !  Most  true — of  co-operation  across  seas. 
And  what  of  America? 

The  United  States  has  so  little  co-operation  in 
the  British  technical  sense  that  what  exists  hardly 
constitutes  a  movement.  It  is  to  be  doubted  that 
there  are  fifty  genuine  distributive  co-operative  so- 
cieties in  the  entire  country.  The  various  systems 
commonly  styled  co-operative  usually  possess  finan- 
cial advantages  for  their  own  members  over  non- 
members,  their  dividends  being  simply  business 
profits  distributed  among  the  shareholders  of  a  joint- 
stock  company.  Examples:  The  co-operative 
building  and  loan  association  is  but  a  bank,  the 
larger  share  of  profits  often  accruing  to  the  non-bor- 
rowing shareholders.  The  co-operative  dairy  is  a 
productive  enterprise  for  profits,  its  advantageous 
sociological  feature — while  it  lasts,  for  concen- 
trated possession  is  the  end  of  many  dairies — be- 
ing ownership  in  many  hands  instead  of  a  few. 
Co-operative  irrigation  is  either  gang-labor  for  a 
division  of  wages  or  a  union  of  landowners  hiring 
wage-earners.  Co-operative  fruit-selling  as  at  pres- 
ent conducted  is  at  times  especially  profitable  to 
producers  through  market  manipulations  as  against 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         141 

consumers.  Co-operative  telephone,  baking,  butch- 
ering, and  factory  ventures  are  quite  uniformly 
nothing  more  than  joint-stock  affairs,  the  shares 
held  in  small  denominations — by  perhaps  many  per- 
sons in  the  beginning,  and  often  but  a  few  in  the 
end.  The  Federal  Department  of  Agriculture  found 
in  a  census  in  1907  85,000  farmers'  "co-operative 
societies"  of  these  various  kinds.  But  of  all  such 
"co-operation"  it  is  to  be  said  that,  while  the  bene- 
fits of  their  profits  may  be  spread  to  a  larger  circle 
of  persons  than  if  only  a  few  "capitalists"  were 
the  owners,  to  employ  the  word  co-operation  to 
designate  them  is  to  cause  the  term  to  lose  the 
specific  and  definite  and  ethical  meaning  attached  to 
it  by  the  British  co-operators. 

In  the  Report  of  the  Central  Board  of  the 
British  Co-operative  Union  for  1911  it  is  stated 
that  the  Chief  Registrar  of  the  United  Kingdom 
recognizes  "1,396  organizations  which  did  not  ap- 
pear in  our  statistical  return,  the  number  being  made 
up  of  workingmen's  clubs,  land  societies,  agricul- 
tural societies,  small  holdings  and  allotment  so- 
cieties, banks,  etc."  I  follow  this  precedent  in  re- 
jecting all  forms  of  association  not  accepted  by  the 
Co-operative  Union. 

There  has  been  much  effort  to  set  up  a  co-opera- 


1 42    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

live  movement  in  the  United  States.  Every  decade 
since  the  18405  has  seen  at  least  one  enthusiastic 
wave  for  co-operation  pass  over  the  country.  No 
need  to  recount  these  movements  here.  The  rec- 
ord of  their  rise  and  fall  may  be  found  in  the  city 
libraries.  The  failures  of  so-called  co-operation  in 
this  country  have  been  so  numerous  and  regular 
that,  with  the  mass  of  wage- workers  and  the  gen- 
eral American  public,  the  whole  co-operative  scheme 
as  a  social  reform  is  in  disrepute. 

Why  should  this  be?  This  query  poses  a  world 
problem.  The  reply  may  be  contained,  indefinitely 
and  comprehensively,  in  the  assertion  that  condi- 
tions in  America  are  different  from  conditions  in 
Europe.  But  what,  precisely,  are  the  most  salient 
points  of  the  particular  social  conditions  in  America 
that  bear  unfavorably  on  co-operation? 

(i)  First  of  all  is  a  factor  in  our  general  eco- 
nomic situation  which,  though  to  a  much  less  ex- 
tent, has  its  counterpart  in  Great  Britain.  British 
society  has  social,  or  rather  financial,  strata,  at  top 
and  bottom,  in  which  co-operation  is  even  today 
almost  wholly  non-existent.  Among  the  wealthy 
the  number  of  co-operators  is  hardly  a  sprinkling; 
among  the  "submerged  tenth"  and  the  very  poor 
menaced  by  submersion  the  proportion  is  equally 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         143 

small.  Co-operation  has  its  stronghold  almost  en- 
tirely among  the  thrifty  artisans,  the  well-paid  and 
regularly  employed  laborers,  and  in  general  the 
social  elements  similarly  situated  financially.  Col- 
lectively, the  miserably  poor  have  neither  the  moral 
fibre  nor  the  little  savings  to  set  up  and  maintain 
by  cash  payments  a  co-operative  store.  As  a  class, 
the  well-to-do  find  it  more  to  their  satisfaction  to 
exercise  choice  or  whim  in  dealing  with  miscel- 
laneous private  traders  than  to  pin  themselves  down 
to  a  local  co-operative  society.  They  order  their 
household  supplies  through  servants ;  they  buy  their 
luxuries  from  various  cities  or  even  countries ;  they 
come  and  go  from  place  to  place;  or  they  are  too 
vain  or  too  fearful  of  putting  in  jeopardy  their 
social  standing  to  confess  the  small  economies  ex- 
pressed in  dealing  at  a  co-operative  store.  Besides, 
they  may  find  opportunities  to  employ  their  extra 
capital  in  ventures  that  pay  better  than  co-opera- 
tion. They  want  profits.  Their  point  of  view,  that 
of  unqualified  individual  self-interest,  is  generally 
shared  by  the  "gentry"  and  the  professional  and 
business  classes,  down  to  the  pettiest  salesmen  of 
the  retail  shopkeeper,  the  penniless  hangers-on  of 
the  aristocracy,  and  the  meanest  of  "poor  relations" 


144         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

living  in  expectancy  of  inheritance  or  preferment, 
and  imbued  with  the  anti-social  spirit  of  caste. 

In  taking  a  broad  view  of  society  in  the  United 
States,  we  see  that  a  considerable  proportion  of  our 
wage  and  salary  workers,  especially  those  of  cer- 
tain occupations  requiring  an  education  beyond  that 
of  the  laboring  masses,  are  financially  on  a  level 
with  those  people  "of  the  middle  class"  in  Great 
Britain  who  are  regarded  as  in  quite  easy  circum- 
stances. They  exhibit  this  fact  in  their  general 
habit  of  seeking  purely  personal  satisfactions  in 
their  buying. 

Note  these  contrasts:  The  British  co-operator, 
in  dealing  at  his  store,  saves  ha'pennies;  as  a  type, 
the  well-placed  American  wage  or  salary  worker 
doesn't  trouble  much  to  save  nickels,  or  perhaps 
even  dimes.  The  customers  of  a  co-operative  store 
commonly  buy  in  person  and  carry  home  their  pur- 
chases; American  butchers  and  grocers,  even  in 
country  towns,  run  delivery  wagons,  and  many 
housekeepers  won't  take  the  trouble  to  leave  their 
own  doors  to  give  their  orders.  A  large  propor- 
tion in  our  American  born  working  classes  have 
too  much  money,  too  much  self-centred  hope,  too 
much  false  pride,  too  many  diversions,  too  many 
ambitions,  to  be  pushed  to  the  point  of  trying  to 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE         145 

co-operate  to  save  on  a  purchase  a  bootblack's  fee. 
The  exclusive  but  virtuous  key  to  co-operation  is 
a  copper  saved;  the  typical  native  American  work- 
ingman's  purse  is  lined  with  silver, — or  he  believes 
it  will  be,  tomorrow. 

(2)  And  here  is  another  set  of  contrasts:  Ex- 
cept in  a  few  large  cities,  the  usual  first  invest- 
ment of  a  thrifty  American  wage-worker's  savings 
is  in  a  home  of  his  own,  or  in  a  town  lot.  A  build- 
ing and  loan  association  in  permanent  operation,  a 
comparatively  low  price  for  his  homesite,  a  wide 
choice  in  location  (today  through  the  suburban 
electric  lines),  and  cheapness  and  facility  in  trans- 
ferral  of  land-ownership — in  all  these  points  lie 
advantages  to  the  American  incomparably  greater 
than  are  usual  to  the  wage-worker  in  Great  Britain 
or  on  the  Continent.  These  opportunities  invite 
the  saving  of  dollars  instead  of  shillings,  and  the 
American  standard  of  wages  for  the  native-born — 
in  many  cases  double  that  of  the  European  standard 
— often  yields  the  necessary  dollars  to  the  man 
hungering  for  the  comfort  and  independence  to  be 
found  under  his  own  roof.  To  the  individual  hav- 
ing a  few  hundred  dollars  the  inducements  of  a 
co-operative  store  are  far  less  than  an  investment 


146         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

for  himself  in  a  town  lot  charged  with  the  possi- 
bilities of  unearned  increment. 

(3)  Here  is  a  very  great  contrast:    In  America, 
to  the  outdoor  worker  who  has  health,  sturdy  char- 
acter, and  even  small  means,  it  has  always  been  an 
easy  thing  to  turn  to  the  soil  for  a  living.    Besides, 
ownership  of  acres  has   ever  in  this  country   its 
brilliant  promise  of  speculative  value.     A  bit  of 
vacant  suburban  real  estate,  bought  on  the  install- 
ment plan,  has  collected  many  a  dollar  from  the 
land-gambling    American    wage-earner.      For    all 
Europe,  in  a  comparative  diagram  of  working-class 
outlay,  the  black  line  representing  this  item  of  ven- 
ture would  not  equal  in  its  length  the  slim  breadth 
of  an  exclamation  mark. 

(4)  And  another  contrast:     In  America,  the  or- 
ganized  workers   hold   themselves   ever   ready   to 
push  wages  upward.     The  promise  of  an  increase 
of  wages  through  a  trade  union  has  left  the  promise 
from  a  co-operative  store  secondary.    Thrifty  union 
members  hold  their  extra  money  ready  to  fall  back 
on  during  profitable  strikes. 

(5)  American  wage-earners  habitually  travel  far 
and  wide  over  our  continent,  to  better  their  jobs, 
to  change  their  trade,  or  even  to  enter  into  busi- 
ness.    Little  of  this  among  our  British  brethren. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         147 

They  are  comparatively  imprisoned — as  to  space,  ac- 
cess to  the  soil,  change  in  occupation,  or  taking, 
through  strikes  or  otherwise,  any  considerable  in- 
creased share  in  the  national  production. 

(6)  In  the  great  cities  and  the  large  industrial 
and   mining  communities   of    America,   a   serious 
hindrance  to  co-operation  is  heterogeneity  of  popu- 
lation.    The  people  of   different  nationalities  are 
separated  in  colonies.    The  slow  fusing  in  the  melt- 
ing-pot does  not  usually  bring  neighbors  of  dif- 
ferent race  and  language  to  the  point  of  a  neces- 
sary  mutual    confidence.      In   Europe   the   "prole- 
tariat" of  each  nation  has  its  traditional  "solidar- 
ity." 

(7)  In  Europe,  the  classes  that  make  up  the  co- 
operative movement  are  in  general  stay-at-homes. 
A  man  may  live  in  the  same  town,  or  the  same 
street,  as  did  his  great-grandfather.   In  America, 
the  artisan  follows  up  attractive  prospects,   or  is 
driven  by  industrial  changes,  from  place  to  place. 
To  him  "transition  is  opportunity,"  and  sometimes 
necessity. 

(8)  In  Europe,  also,  movement  from  one  finan- 
cial level  to  another  comes  in  the  career  of  only 
a  small  percentage  of  the  population.  In  America, 
nearly  all  native  workingmen  have  a  hope  of  in- 


i48         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

dividual  betterment;  many  have  forged  ahead; 
masses  have  lifted  themselves  through  the  trade 
unions.  Continued  and  rapid  changes  in  methods, 
machinery,  and  business  organization  send  men  up 
and  down  at  a  rate  rarely  equaled  in  other  coun- 
tries. The  possibilities  of  increasing  their  share 
in  our  enormous  annual  production  of  wealth  allure 
all  alert  men  to  take  risks.  Why,  then,  should  the 
strong  and  capable  among  them  anchor  themselves 
to  a  slow  struggle  for  petty  economies  in  compan- 
ionship with  people  of  the  tup-penny  ha'penny 
grade?  Why  bother  to  save  farthings  when,  some 
day  to  come,  one  may  reach  out  and  take  dollars? 
Why  become  manager  for  a  co-operative  store  at 
a  clerk's  salary,  never  even  to  be  doubled,  when 
one  may  enter  the  race  for  himself  and  possibly 
come  out  among  the  famous  winners?  Citations, 
these,  from  the  American  gospel  of  business,  by 
which  the  ambitious  worship. 

Other  sets  of  facts  bearing  on  the  probable  suc- 
cess of  co-operation  in  America: 

(9)  Some  investigators  of  this  subject  have 
reached  the  conclusion  that  "conventional  profits" 
of  household  goods  are  on  a  smaller  margin  in 
America  than  in  Europe.  In  other  words,  com- 
petition in  trade  in  this  country  is  the  more  acute. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE          149 

Department  stores,  mail  order  houses,  installment 
firms  offer  the  customer  inducements  not  to  be 
matched  by  a  budding  co-operative  store. 

(10)  Especially,  the  system  of  seasonal  bargain 
sales,  when  goods  are  "sold  below  cost,"  would  be 
difficult  with  co-operators.  American  women  as 
purchasers  are  keen  and  restless  bargain  hunters, 
wits  sharpened  in  many  a  shopping  campaign.  They 
go  from  side  street  basements  to  palatial  depart- 
ment stores,  even  in  the  smaller  cities,  seeking 
"leaders,"  "reductions,"  "remnants,"  "job  lots," 
"trading  stamps,"  or  "snaps"  or  "lucky  finds"  of 
any  kind. 

(n)  American  wholesalers  put  big  stocks  of 
goods  in  the  hands  of  retailers  on  liberal  com- 
missions, or  on  low  terms  or  long  credits,  taking 
risks  beyond  those  common  in  the  wholesale  trade 
in  Europe. 

(12)  In  New  England,  the  charge  was  made  at 
the  trial  of  a  defaulting  co-operative  manager  (who 
had  been  imported  from  England)  that  the  whole- 
salers had  "bought  him  up" ;  in  the  city  of  Wash- 
ington four  years  ago  a  wholesale  association  stifled 
an  attempt  at  distributive  co-operation  on  the  part 
of  government  employes  by  refusing  to  sell  goods 
to  their  store;  co-operative  buyers  of  meat  in  Har- 


150         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

lem  last  autumn  complained  that  individual  rivals 
were  influencing  the  packing  houses  against  them. 

(13)  In  America,  the  problem  of  trust  owner- 
ship of  commodities  and  trust  manipulation  of  their 
wholesale  distribution  takes  precedence,  in  the  minds 
of  most  public  leaders,  of  any  problem  in  retail- 
ing.  They  think  that  co-operation   can  await  its 
due  turn. 

(14)  In  America,  vain  promises  of  social  mar- 
vels, to  be  wrought  in  a  day  of  judgment  through 
politics,  have  kept  the  working  classes  in  a  fever  at 
times  of  commercial  crises  when  setting  up  co-opera- 
tive stores  might  have  been  their  positive  gain.     In 
several  of  our  cities  and  industrial  centres  the  wage- 
workers  are  now  in  the  political  miracle-working 
frame  of  mind  that  obsessed  the  Socialists  of  Ger- 
many twenty  years  ago.  The  latter,  in  the  last  fifteen 
years,  have  wholly  changed  their  tactics  regarding 
co-operation,  as  they  previously  did  with  relation 
to  trade  unionism.    In  1896,  the  Socialists  of  Ham- 
burg had  hardly  touched  co-operation.    Today  they 
have  co-operative  societies  that  include  more  than 
30,000  members,  administering  a  great  wholesale 
central  establishment  and  many  branches,  besides 
slaughter-houses    and    building    associations.      In 
1896,  on  meeting  some  of  their  leaders  in  Edinburgh 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         151 

at  the  British  Trade  Union  Congress,  I  heard  them 
talking  revolutionary  politics;  in  1909,  on  visiting 
Hamburg  with  Samuel  Gompers,  I  found  that  the 
same  persons,  still  Socialists,  had  become  promi- 
nent among  the  co-operatives,  enthusiastically  carry- 
ing out  voluntary  plans  for  improving  society. 

(15)  The  American  is  characterized  by  quick- 
ness of  comprehension,  eagerness  to  make  ventures, 
and  readiness  to  go  ahead  without  over-attention 
to  details  or  to  what  seem  to  him  the  unessential 
or  the  petty  features  of  a  grand  idea.     But  rough- 
and-ready  methods  are  unsuited  to  co-operation. 
Bigness  of  scheme  at  the  start  is  a  danger.     Confi- 
dence among  the  masses  is  of  slow  growth,  and 
without  it  the  basis  of  co-operative  effort  is  inse- 
cure.    The  disregarded  flaws  of  petty  profit-mon- 
gering,  undemocratic  management,  and  partial  joint- 
stock  operation  have  brought  to  an  end  many  an 
American  co-operative  society  accepted  for  a  time 
as  "the  genuine  thing  at  last." 

(16)  Common  abuse  of  the  term  "co-operative" 
stands  at  the  present  time  in  the  way  of  possible 
American  co-operation.     Whereas  in  Great  Britain, 
or  in  most  of  the  Continental  countries,  when  a  co- 
operative society  is  started,  a  national  Co-operative 
Union  has  generally  given  it  recognition,  in  America 


152         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

any  association  may  lay  claim  to  being  co-operative, 
no  matter  the  counterfeit  in  its  nature.  In  the 
course  of  years  of  travel,  on  looking  into  the  opera- 
tions of  scores  of  self-styled  co-operative  societies 
in  America,  I  found  few  that  were  not  either  in- 
tentionally spurious  or  fatally  defective  in  organi- 
zation, faults  due  to  an  uninquiring  membership. 
Five  out  of  six  I  visited  ten  years  ago,  or  even 
seven  years  ago,  are  dead  now,  or  have  ceased  to 
simulate  co-operation.  One  in  Lawrence,  Mass., 
with  a  membership  of  more  than  4,000  lived — and 
died — through  the  encouragement  of  a  big  cloth- 
mill  company;  another,  in  Manhattan,  claiming 
2,000  members,  was,  for  its  brief  day,  a  medium 
for  promoting  the  Socialist  party. 

(17)  In  the  larger  cities  of  Western  Europe  co- 
operation has  had  but  a  slight  hold  as  compared 
with  the  industrial  centres  in  the  country  districts. 
Many  of  the  ventures  in  the  United  States  have 
taken  place  in  the  big  cities,  where  the  causes  for 
failure  bear  the  most  heavily. 

(18)  In  Great  Britain,  productive  co-operation 
has  followed  distributive,  and  slowly.  In  the  United 
States,  direct  plunges  into  the  difficulties  of  co- 
operative   factories   have   been   innumerable,   with 
few  successes. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         153 

(19)  The  ignorance  of  Americans  as  a  mass  re- 
garding cp-operation  is  a  sore  subject  for  its  few 
qualified  supporters  in  this  country.  To  understand 
co-operation  as  a  social  institution  founded  on  fixed 
principles  and  requiring  certain  invariable  methods 
seems  beyond  the  nimbleness  of  the  average  mental- 
ity.    Any  pretty  scheme  launched   on  the   public 
by  clever  promoters  may  be  popularly  accepted  as 
"co-operation."     A  ludicrous  example  of  this  ten- 
dency was  recently  shown  when  at  the  formation 
of  a  so-called  co-operative  society   a  circular  in- 
tended to  aid  the  project  was  handed  about,   in 
which,  as  a  clinching  attractive  argument,  was  a 
quotation    from    Beatrice    Potter's    "Co-operative 
Movement"  showing  that  the  shares  of  a  London 
supply   association   had   increased   in   value   enor- 
mously in  the  course  of  time.    The  authoress  had  in 
fact  cited  the  point  to  prove  conclusively  that  the 
supply  association  was  a  gross  departure  in  prin- 
ciple from  co-operation,  which  permits  no  advance 
in  the  value  of  shares. 

(20)  The  lack  of  .confidence  in  organization  of- 
ficials is  a  serious  difficulty  in  forming  co-operative 
societies  in  America.    "The  buyer  is  the  weak  point 
in    British    co-operation,"    declares    a    lawyer-like 
"friend"  of  the  movement.    The  idea  is  disagreeable 


154         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

enough  to  dash  the  enthusiasm  of  the  inexperi- 
enced. When  it  is  then  found  that  in  England  whis- 
perings against  buyers  is  not  an  unheard-of  thing, 
that  shady  transactions  have  indeed  at  times  been 
traced  to  them,  faint  hearts  with  little  faith  fall 
away  from  the  cause. 

The  experience  of  both  the  Old  World  and  the 
New  in  co-operation  has  been  ignored  in  the  great 
majority  of  the  numerous  "reduce-the-cost-of -liv- 
ing" co-operative  schemes  put  forth  the  last  year 
or  two  in  the  United  States.  Few  have  been  worth 
the  investment  of  a  farthing.  Such  projects  as  fol- 
low Rochdale  co-operation,  or  the  associate  buying 
or  selling  of  small  groups  federated,  may  deserve 
attention.  Those  that  suggest  big  corporations, 
with  a  staff  of  officials,  may  be  left  by  the  wage- 
workers  to  succeed,  if  they  can,  in  Wall  Street. 
The  floating  of  companies  for  every  conceivable 
purpose  is  a  practice  as  common  in  America,  and 
as  shrewdly  followed,  as  the  science  of  all  'round 
lying  in  the  far  East.  "Here's  a  better  scheme"  is 
an  announcement  that  in  this  country  always  ob- 
tains listeners  and  too  often  investors.  It  has 
broken  down  many  a  fair  attempt  at  co-operation. 
We  are  offered  "an  improvement  on  the  Rochdale 
system,"  or  "a  variation  from  it  necessary  in 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         155 

America,"  or  a  "profit-sharing  form  of  co-opera- 
tion," all  equally  alluring  and  hollow.  Upon  one 
of  my  library  shelves  is  a  heap  of  letters,  leaflets, 
pamphlets,  prospectuses,  a  foot  high,  labeled  "re- 
cent frauds,  follies,  and  failures  of  so-called  co- 
operation." Americans  have  yet  to  learn  that  quali- 
fied co-operators — grounded  in  principle,  instructed 
as  to  methods,  in  touch  with  the  world  movement 
— must  be  developed  first  and  co-operative  estab- 
lishments afterward. 

But  while  these  perhaps  unwelcome  counts  and 
considerations  may  be  only  too  true,  is  it  not  pos- 
sible that  in  our  great  population  there  may  be  some 
millions — perhaps  ten  or  even  twenty — to  whom 
the  co-operative  movement  may  finally  appeal?  Is 
it  not  a  duty  of  those  Americans  acquainted  with 
the  European  movement  to  preach  its  genuine 
principles  and  see  that  they  are  not  overlooked  by 
the  American  public  when  questions  of  working- 
class  progress  are  under  discussion? 

British  co-operators,  reviewing  the  history  of 
co-operative  effort  in  America,  are  in  accord  in 
saying  that  the  one  common  fault  with  nearly  all 
of  America's  experiments  in  alleged  co-operation 
has  been  that  they  were  not  co-operative  at  all. 
They  have  been  communistic,  as  with  the  Fourierist 


156         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

phalansteries,  with  Ruskin,  with  Topolobampo ;  or 
part  co-operative,  part  laborite,  and  part  political, 
as  with  the  Knights  of  Labor  in  the  '8os;  or  self- 
seeking  joint-stock  enterprises,  baited  with  the  title 
of  co-operation. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  co-operation  was 
a  constant  and  disheartening  failure  in  Great  Brit- 
ain until  its  moral  foundation  was  discovered  and 
built  upon.  One  example  of  a  class  in  thousands 
of  failures:  In  1834  the  kingdom  had  no  less  than 
seven  hundred  societies,  organized  to  promote 
Owenite  communities.  Ten  years  afterward  only 
four  of  them  were  in  existence.  Owen's  schemes 
attracted  enthusiasts  for  a  time,  but  could  not  out- 
wear everyday  discouragements.  They  were  im- 
practical. 

Have  all  the  disasters  to  alleged  co-operation  in 
the  United  States  possibly  served  the  purpose  of 
clearing  the  way  in  the  American  mind  to  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  only  true  and  lasting  principle 
of  genuine  co-operation,  equity;  to  a  knowledge  of 
its  principle  of  growth,  confidence;  and  to  a  per- 
ception of  its  principle  of  self-government,  democ- 
racy? Or  are  Americans,  heedless  of  the  lessons  of 
failure,  to  go  on  indefinitely  listening  to  promoters 
of  smart  or  magnificent  schemes,  each  proclaimed 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         157 

as  "something  better  for  America  than  the  British 
system  of  co-operation, "  while  this,  the  only  suc- 
cessful working-class  co-operative  method,  contin- 
ues to  spread  over  the  face  of  all  Europe? 


IX.     THE  RETAIL  MARKETS  OF  PARIS- 
ONLY  THE  OUT-DOOR  SUCCESSFUL. 

PARIS  presents  a  wider  and  more  varied  range 
in  methods  of  marketing  than  any  other  of  the  great 
cities.  In  seeing  what  Europe  may  teach  New  York 
in  this  respect,  it  will  repay  the  inquirer  to  visit 
Paris  first. 

The  "basket  woman",  frequently  seen  in  the  nar- 
row streets  of  unfashionable  Paris,  brings  the  pub- 
lic market  in  a  rudimentary  stage  to  the  homes 
of  people  of  small  means.  In  this  market,  as  in  all 
others,  is  seen  the  play  of  the  interests  principally 
concerned — those  of  the  seller,  the  buyer  and  the 
public  authority. 

As  seller,  the  basket  woman  is  in  the  poorest  class 
of  ambulant  street  peddlers  of  the  city.  She  usu- 
ally vends  fish,  fruit,  flowers,  or  green  vegetables. 
Her  stock  as  she  sets  out  on  her  route  from  the 
wholesale  market  may  have  cost  her  from  a  dollar 
to  five  dollars.  She  serves  transient  as  well  as  regu- 
lar customers  as  she  goes  from  house  to  house  and 
street  to  street.  She  knows  her  part  in  the  business 
158 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         159 

of  huckstering.  She  is  aware  that  she  must  sell 
cheaper  or  better  fish,  for  example,  or  save  her 
patrons,  in  time  or  convenience,  more  than  any  other 
vendor,  of  any  class,  if  she  would  retain  her 
trade.  In  her  own  appearance  and  in  the  handling 
of  her  stock  she  must  respond  to  the  ideas  of  fit- 
ness prevailing  among  her  possible  customers.  In 
Paris — it  is  to  the  point  here  to  make  the  observa- 
tion— she  is  usually  obliging,  tactful,  cheerful  and 
honest,  a  person  one  may  deal  with  confident  of 
satisfactory  service. 

Second  in  this  market,  the  consumer  bargaining 
with  the  basket  woman  has  in  mind  prices  and 
qualities  offered  by  other  vendors,  great  and  small. 
The  consumer  becomes  a  buyer  only  on  being  cer- 
tain of  obtaining  the  desired  commodity  at  the 
lowest  possible  outlay. 

Third,  the  public  authority,  in  Paris,  whatever 
the  written  law,  extends  toward  the  basket  peddlers 
a  generous  toleration,  within  limits.  They  must  not 
create  any  nuisance,  through  ringing  door  bells,  in- 
vading private  premises,  littering  the  streets  or  loud 
crying  of  wares. 

The  business  of  this  primary  market  is  con- 
trolled by  the  commercial  principles  prevailing  in 
all  markets,  whatever  their  extent.  The  seller  ever 


i6o         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

offers  his  goods  as  low  as  he  must — not  invariably 
as  low  as  he  can — and  he  practices  his  professional 
arts  to  attract  a  possible  customer.  The  buyer  seeks 
the  best  at  the  least  price — in  money  or  time,  or 
irksomeness.  The  public  authority  guards,  or 
should  guard,  the  general  interests — not  a  simple 
and  well  understood  duty  even  in  the  case  of  street 
peddlers,  as  varying  policies  in  this  apparently  mi- 
nor respect  have  given  rise  to  vast  differences  in 
the  development  of  the  many  public  and  private 
agencies  for  food  distribution,  and  in  the  general 
cost  of  staple  commodities  as  bought  by  the  masses, 
in  Paris,  Berlin,  London  and  New  York. 

The  basket  woman  may  become  one  of  the  ven- 
dors in  a  tolerated  curbstone  line  of  basket  people. 
One  of  the  best  known  of  these  cheapest  of  markets 
is  held  daily  in  the  Rue  Montorgueil,  which  runs 
from  the  Central  Market  Halls  north  toward  the 
Grand  Boulevards.  Here  at  times  are  ranged  along 
the  curb  on  one  side  of  the  street  as  many  as  a 
hundred  women,  with  a  few  men,  each  offering  for 
sale  a  small  stock  of  fruit  or  market-garden  prod- 
uce. The  police  toleration  ends  at  noon,  when 
the  vendors  move  off.  An  officer  on  post  in  this 
street  estimated  the  average  daily  earnings  of  these 
lowly  tradesmen  at  forty  to  sixty  cents.  A  shop- 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE         161 

keeper,  not  dealing  in  provisions,  looked  on  their 
traffic  favorably.  "They  attract  a  crowd,"  she  said, 
"which  is  good  for  our  business." 

From  the  basket  to  the  pushcart  grade  of  vendor 
is  a  considerable  step  upward  in  the  ranks  of  com- 
merce. Cart,  scales  and  price-cards  constitute  a 
pushcart  dealer's  equipment.  The  Paris  pushcart 
people  have  full  civic  recognition  through  special 
laws,  carried  out  by  the  police.  Licenses  are  free. 
They  are  issued  preferably  to  necessitous  persons 
having  families,  rendering  the  traffic  a  form  of 
public  assistance  through  work.  A  pushcart  ven- 
dor must  be  a  French  citizen,  at  least  thirty  years 
of  age,  resident  two  years  in  Paris;  he  (or  she) 
must  carry  a  metal  badge,  renewable  yearly,  and 
a  notebook  containing  his  (or  her)  photograph. 
The  cart  is  restricted  in  size;  it  must  bear  a  num- 
bered plaque;  it  must  not  be  drawn  by  an  animal, 
nor  may  it  carry  advertisements.  The  pushcart 
peddlers  may  circulate  freely  from  sunrise  to  mid- 
night in  all  the  streets  except  a  certain  few  re- 
stricted, including  those  for  several  hundred  yards 
about  the  Central  Market  Halls,  and  also  except 
in  the  street  space  within  one  hundred  meters  from 
the  district  markets  and  within  forty  meters  from 


1 62    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

stores  selling  merchandise  similar  to  their  own. 
They  must  not  enter  houses  or  courtyards,  either 
to  sell  or  to  deliver  their  wares.  With  respect  to 
location  while  selling,  they  are  classified  in  two 
divisions,  one  authorized  to  do  business  within  an 
inner  circle  of  the  city,  bordered  by  the  newer 
ring  of  boulevards,  and  the  second  in  an  outer 
circle,  reaching  thence  to  the  fortifications.  With 
respect  to  standing  at  fixed  stations,  they  are 
also  in  two  legal  divisions,  one  having  assign- 
ments to  permanent  places  and  the  other  obliged 
to  keep  moving  except  during  a  sale — the  latter 
provision,  in  an  indefinite  number  of  cases,  a  dead 
letter,  consequent  upon  understandings  between 
shopkeepers,  police  and  pushcarters.  Licenses  may 
not  be  hired  or  lent — but  the  license-holder  may 
have  an  authorized  aid  or  substitute.  The  permits 
are  well  distributed  throughout  the  city,  partly 
through  the  benevolent  care  of  ward  political  lead- 
ers. The  total  number  of  licenses  is  given  year  by 
year  in  official  reports  as  6,000;  but  the  Police  In- 
spector of  Street  Traffic  told  me  he  sees  his  way 
yearly  to  issuing  9,000.  Special  permits  being  also 
granted  in  season  for  vending  ice-cream,  holiday 
goods,  non-spirituous  drinks,  etc.,  the  number  of 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         163 

live  tickets  for  street  peddling,  in  one  form  or  an- 
other, has  at  times  reached  18,000.  Carts  can  be 
hired,  ten  cents  a  day.  One  effect  of  the  city's 
liberal  policy  with  peddlers,  and  of  the  fruitless 
outcome  of  arrests,  is  an  indifference  of  the  police 
to  minor  infractions  of  the  peddling  ordinances. 
"It  is  well  to  close  one's  eyes  once  in  a  while,"  ex- 
plained a  patrolman  to  me,  as  he  failed  to  observe 
some  poor  basket  peddlers  operating  in  a  regular 
street  market. 

The  value  of  a  full  pushcart  load  of  fruit  or 
vegetables  may  run  from  six  to  twenty  dollars; 
the  average  daily  gains  of  the  vendors  is  popu- 
larly estimated  at  from  a  dollar  and  a  half  to  three 
dollars.  The  lines  of  pushcarts  legally  stationed 
at  authorized  points,  or  through  an  understood  fic- 
tion "obliged  through  their  continuous  custom"  to 
remain  by  the  half -hour  along  some  of  the  busy 
streets,  such  as  those  leading  to  the  railway  sta- 
tions when  the  commuters  are  going  home,  make 
up  at  least  sixty  pushcart  markets,  each  with  from 
ten  to  a  hundred  carts,  in  operation  every  day  in 
the  streets  and  open  spaces  of  Paris. 

These  irregular  pushcart  markets,  however,  have 
no  connection  with  the  established  municipal  open- 
air  general  provision  markets,  of  which  there  are 


164         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

thirty.  All  but  five  of  the  latter  have  been  established 
since  1873;  fifteen,  in  fact,  since  1885.  They  came 
into  vogue  twenty-five  years  after  the  housed  retail 
system  was  established.  They  are  distributed  in 
fifteen  of  the  twenty  wards  of  the  city,  the  greater 
number  in  the  poorer  districts.  Some  are  in  city 
squares;  others  in  the  central  roadways  of  boule- 
vards; others  in  narrow  streets,  on  the  sidewalks; 
a  few  under  elevated  stretches  of  the  Metropolitan 
Railway,  though  this  location  is  not  favored  owing 
to  drafts  and  dampness.  In  all,  the  thirty  have 
6,296  stands — fruit  and  vegetables  taking  up 
2,600;  meat  540;  butter,  cheese  and  eggs  430; 
bread  77 ;  delicatessen  308 ;  fish  402 ;  manufactured 
merchandise  991.  The  vendors,  at  two  and  a  half 
to  a  stand,  would  thus  number  more  than  15,000; 
but  many  of  the  holders  have  stand-rights  in  more 
than  one  market,  though  not  in  two  markets  in 
one  day. 

Twelve  of  the  thirty  open-air  markets  are  held 
three  times  a  week  and  eighteen  twice.  Sunday  is 
the  best  day.  The  obligatory  payments  for  a  stand, 
two  meters  by  two  (a  meter  is  39.37  inches),  in- 
clusive of  rent,  cleaning  up  and  pro  rata  assess- 
ment for  a  flat  canvas  roof  which  extends  over  a 
row  of  stands,  runs  from  fifteen  to  twenty  cents  a 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         165 

day,  with  option  to  hire  also  tables  and  side  and 
back  curtains  at  eight  cents.  The  several  parts  of 
the  stand  equipment  are  furnished  by  a  contrac- 
tor, who  collects  all  dues.  The  number  of  stands 
in  the  open-air  markets  is  restricted,  and  in  1912 
only  four  had  places  vacant.  A  stand  is  an  own- 
er's property,  subject  with  its  good  will  to  inheri- 
tance. French  writers  on  the  subject  expatiate  on 
the  prosperity  of  these  marketmen.  One  hears  that 
some  of  the  standholders  own  market  gardens  near 
Paris,  buy  in  large  quantities  at  wholesale  at  the 
Central  Markets,  or  order  direct  by  rail  from  the 
country,  to  supply  themselves  and  other  stand- 
keepers  or  corner  grocers.  They  are  also  reputed 
to  be  rich  owners  of  Paris  tenement  houses,  gov- 
ernment bonds,  etc. !  In  station  of  life  they  are 
provision  dealers,  quite  apart  from  the  pushcart 
caste.  Official  reports  give  the  waiting  time  for 
vacant  places  in  each  open-air  market,  usually  a  mat- 
ter of  years,  in  cases  twenty.  The  standing  appli- 
cations for  places  on  record  last  year  were  more 
than  17,000. 

Every  point  in  the  operation  of  a  Paris  municipal 
outdoor  market  is  subject  to  official  regulation. 
The  contractor  may  not  begin  arranging  the  stands 
or  erecting  the  covers  until  a  certain  hour  the 


166        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

evening  before  a  stated  market  day.  He  must  ob- 
serve a  prescribed  uniformity  in  the  dimensions  of 
the  stands  and  in  the  height  of  the  continuous 
cover,  which  is  of  canvas,  "fortified"  at  every  half- 
meter  by  a  scantling,  its  supports  iron  rods  planted 
in  dents  in  the  asphalt  paving.  He  must  set  about 
removing  his  equipment  and  cleaning  the  market 
site  and  streets  a  quarter  of  an  hour  after  the 
market  closes.  The  vendors  must  be  French  citi- 
zens; they  cannot  sublet  their  stalls;  they  may  sell 
only  the  commodities  named  in  their  permits.  They 
must  unload  their  wagons  before  market  hours, 
haul  them  off  to  their  stables  or  to  street  stations 
apart  from  the  market  movement,  and  not  reload 
until  market  closing.  They  must  keep  in  full  pub- 
lic view  their  tables  or  chopping  blocks  on  which 
are  prepared  commodities  for  customers.  They 
may  not  hang  up  on  their  stands  any  sign  or  ad- 
vertisement, except  a  plaque  having  on  it  the  own- 
er's name  and  address.  They  may  not  place  ob- 
structions of  any  sort  in  the  public  way;  must  not 
"bark,"  nor  call  passers-by  away  from  other  stands, 
nor  go  in  front  of  their  own  stands  to  serve  cus- 
tomers. Nor  may  they  act  as  guides  to  the  mar- 
ket, or  distribute  business  cards  bearing  an  outside 
address.  Buying  for  resale  in  the  market — specu- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         167 

lation — and  transfer  of  stock  from  place  to  place 
within  it  are  prohibited.  How  boxes,  barrels,  bas- 
kets, litter  may  be  disposed  of  is  prescribed.  Most 
of  the  commodities  must  be  sold  by  weight,  those 
to  be  sold  by  the  piece,  bunch,  or  measure  being 
named.  The  signal  for  opening  and  closing  the 
market  is  the  official  bell;  the  usual  hours  are  from 
nine  o'clock  until  three.  For  the  enforcement  of 
the  rules  the  only  public  functionaries  usually  visi- 
ble are  a  few  policemen.  Acts  calling  for  their 
intervention  are  rare. 

The  value  of  the  stock  on  a  stand  runs  as  high 
as  four  hundred  dollars.  Some  of  the  butchers 
keep  five  persons  busy,  cutting  and  serving  the  meat 
and  receiving  the  money.  A  part  of  the  fruit  and 
vegetable  supply  is  hauled  direct  from  the  market- 
garden  country  near  Paris,  but  most  of  it  is  bought 
by  the  vendors  at  the  Central  Halls.  Much  of  the 
meat,  especially  veal,  comes  from  country  butchers. 
Poultry  and  rabbits  are  cut  up  in  parts  for  sale  by 
the  pound;  the  dressing  of  poultry  in  the  markets 
is  prohibited,  but  rabbits  are  killed  and  skinned  at 
some  of  the  stands,  buyers  paying  three  cents  extra 
per  pound  to  be  thus  assured  the  meat  is  fresh. 

No  matter  what  the  weather — rain,  snow,  or 
thermometer  at  freezing — the  outdoor  markets  are 


1 68    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

busy;  generally  they  are  crowded.  The  attendance 
is  mostly  by  people  of  the  working  class,  though 
in  several  of  the  west-end  markets — Breteuil, 
Neuilly,  Pont  de  1'Alma — many  well-to-do  house- 
wives attend,  their  maids  with  them  to  carry  their 
purchases.  Few  buyers  have  a  basket.  More  con- 
venient is  their  shopper's  bag  of  wide-meshed  net- 
work, with  a  double  valise  handle.  Excepting  the 
large  fruits  and  vegetables,  goods  are  usually  put 
up  in  wrappers  by  the  vendors.  Buyers  almost  in- 
variably take  their  purchases  home  themselves. 

The  market  authorities  recognize  four  categories 
of  vegetables,  all  good.  Likewise,  the  other  com- 
modities on  sale  have  their  varying  qualities,  sev- 
eral frequently  on  a  single  stand,  their  different 
prices  indicated  on  the  price  cards,  in  the  absence 
of  which  customers  are  apt  to  pass  by.  The  general 
level  of  the  quality  of  the  stock  varies  in  different 
markets,  according  to  the  length  of  purse  of  "the 
average  customer"  in  each.  As  to  prices,  they  are 
influenced  by  several  factors,  apart  from  usual 
market  conditions  of  season  and  supply.  The  city 
duties  are  an  important  factor.  Then,  within  five 
minutes'  walk  of  any  open-air  market,  are  push- 
carts, singly  or  in  a  line,  and  close  at  hand,  brought 
to  life  through  the  "commercial  atmosphere"  of 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         169 

the  market,  are  rows  of  shops,  their  stock  com- 
posed in  part  of  the  same  commodities  as  those  in 
the  market;  the  cafe  sidewalks  become  for  the  day 
flower  markets,  if  nothing  more ;  any  private  vacant 
lots  near  a  market  are  fully  taken  up  with  tempo- 
rary stands.  The  vendors  of  "perishables,"  in  and 
out  of  the  regular  market,  wish  to  avoid  carrying 
any  of  their  stock  away.  In  case  of  a  surplus,  the 
last  moments  therefore  bring  a  scramble  for  the 
remnants  of  stock  at  cut  prices. 

The  proportion  of  all  the  foodstuffs  sold  in  Paris 
that  is  handled  by  the  pushcart  and  open-air  market 
vendors  is  not  officially  known.  But  inasmuch  as 
estimate  was  made  for  me  at  the  Bureau  of  Statis- 
tics for  France  that  the  value  of  the  fruit  and 
vegetables  annually  consumed  in  the  city  is  at  least 
$35,000,000  and  may  be  $50,000,000,  if  the  num- 
ber of  peddlers  and  open-air  standholders  dealing 
in  these  commodities  be  assumed  to  average  no 
more  than  five  thousand  per  day,  it  would  require 
only  a  daily  sale  by  each  vendor  of  eight  dollars' 
worth  of  stock  (total,  $40,000)  to  amount  to  more 
than  $14,000,000  a  year.  Roughly,  then,  a  third 
of  the  retail  dealings  in  these  commodities,  it  is 
quite  certain,  is  by  the  street  methods  indicated. 
It  may  be  much  more.  The  market  and  peddler 


170        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

sale  of  common  flowers  is  in  larger  proportion.  The 
open-air  meat,  poultry,  butter,  cheese  and  eggs 
stalls,  though  numbered  by  the  hundreds,  dispose 
of  a  smaller  proportion  of  their  respective  goods 
than  in  the  case  of  fruit  and  vegetables. 

Paris  has  ten  open-air  retail  flower  markets,  hav- 
ing 680  stalls  occupied :  besides,  basket  women  sell 
flowers  in  the  streets.  At  the  wholesale  flower 
market  of  the  Halls,  97  places  are  taken  up  by 
dealers  in  the  flowers  of  southern  France. 

Besides  the  officially  recognized  open-air  markets 
are  several  tolerated  Sunday  morning  markets  in 
streets  immemorially  given  over  to  the  sale  of  mis- 
cellaneous articles — the  incongruous  displays  of 
the  Rue  Mouffetard,  the  "flea"  market  of  the  Rue 
St.  Medard.  Just  outside  the  city  line — the  forti- 
fications— are  "fairs"  such  as  that  of  Bicetre,  held 
several  days  a  week,  at  least  one  of  them  having, 
on  more  than  a  thousand  places  in  line,  an  astonish- 
ing collection  of  miscellaneous  things  salable  that 
would  require  a  goodly  volume  to  catalogue. 

A  low  estimate  of  the  number  of  licensed  regu- 
lar open-air  retail  vendors  of  Paris  would  be  20,- 
ooo ;  it  may  at  times  be  30,000;  while  a  census  of 
the  tolerated  irregulars  no  authority  has  attempted. 
As  we  have  seen,  there  are  9,000  pushcart  vendors, 


MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE]   171 

many  having  substitutes,  more  than  6,000  open-air 
market  stands,  all  having  assistant  salespeople,  and 
numerous  occasional  license  holders.  Besides  are 
1,300  keepers  of  kiosques,  booths,  and  handcarts 
not  selling  provisions.  Not  in  this  count  are  the 
waiters  for  10,000  outdoor  cafe  and  other  tables 
and  peripatetic  attendants  for  19,000  shop  sidewalk 
displays ! 

Next  in  the  list  of  the  various  forms  of  Paris 
markets  come  the  public  market-houses.  This  di- 
vision of  the  municipal  system,  which  includes  the 
Central  and  district  "halls,"  was  for  the  most  part 
completed  fifty  years  ago — in  the  '6os. 

Of  the  district  houses  there  are  now  nineteen 
owned  and  operated  by  the  municipality  and  four 
owned  by  it  but  operated  privately  through  conces- 
sions. All,  with  but  two  exceptions,  are  in  a  state 
of  decadence,  despite  the  efforts  of  the  market  au- 
thorities to  contrive  means  for  making  them  popu- 
lar or  to  reduce  the  expenses  of  their  maintenance. 
One,  the  twentieth,  was  closed  in  the  spring  of  the 
present  year.  From  time  to  time  parts  of  several 
have  been  turned  over  to  other  public  uses — to  the 
army,  to  the  fire  department,  to  the  city  laundry 
service.  In  six  of  the  houses,  the  tenants  of  700 
stalls  were  two  years  ago  accorded  reduced  rates; 


172        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

in  three,  half  rents  were  given  for  the  summer 
months.  In  connection  with  others,  outside  stalls 
were  opened  in  the  streets.  Notwithstanding  these 
helpful  measures,  the  vacant  stalls  last  year,  out 
of  a  total  of  3,231  yet  remaining,  numbered  1,189. 
The  gross  receipts  of  fourteen  of  the  municipal 
houses  failed  to  equal  five  per  cent  on  the  value  of 
their  sites  and  buildings,  with  operating  expenses 
yet  unaccounted  for.  In  this  financial  situation, 
these  market-houses  call  for  little  special  consid- 
eration here  as  to  methods  of  operation,  which,  in 
fact,  mainly  consist  merely  of  dividing  them  into 
small  stalls — the  unit  two  meters  by  two — lighting 
and  cleaning  the  establishment,  and  leaving  the  rest 
to  the  stall-holders.  Says  the  most  recent  French 
writer  on  the  markets  of  Paris  (Robert  Facque, 
1911):  "The  district  halls  are  doomed  to  disap- 
pear." 

As  the  public  market-houses  of  Paris  have  gone 
down,  its  merchants'  modern  grocery  and  provision 
houses  have  come  up.  The  simple  grocery  of  fifty 
years  ago  has  become  a  market,  with  every  sort  of 
produce  in  one  salesroom  or  a  series  of  rooms,  in 
the  hands  of  a  single  proprietor.  Even  in  the 
smaller  stores,  one  line  of  commodities  after  an- 
other not  kept  in  the  old-time  dry  grocery  has  been 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         173 

added — vegetables,  poultry,  meats,  delicatessen, 
etc.  The  big  provision  store,  with  a  delivery  sys- 
tem, deals  largely  in  luxuries,  choice  "bottled 
goods,"  or  the  canned  and  potted  fruits  and  pre- 
serves that  have  become  necessaries,  not  commonly 
found  in  the  public  markets,  thus  especially  attract- 
ing the  moneyed  class  of  buyers.  Forty  of  the 
leading  general  provision  stores  of  Paris  carry  on 
a  business  of  more  than  $200,000  a  year  each,  as 
reported  by  the  retail  grocers'  secretary,  and  the 
annual  sales  of  one  firm,  having  four  great  houses 
in  the  city  and  numerous  branches  in  the  country, 
amount  to  twenty  million  dollars.  While  the  open- 
air  markets,  the  pushcart  vendors,  and  to  Some 
extent  the  co-operative  stores  of  Paris,  have  been 
luring  customers  away  from  the  district  market 
halls,  these  big  newly  developed  private  provision 
stores  have  taken  a  large  share  of  the  same  pat- 
ronage. 

Every  observer  of  the  methods  of  selling  pro- 
visions whom  I  interviewed  during  a  half  year  in 
Paris  placed  the  open-air  markets,  together  with 
the  pushcarts,  far  above  every  other  form  of  ser- 
vice for  the  masses. 


X.     THE  "CENTRAL  HALLS"  OF  PARIS- 
COMPETITORS  ILLEGAL. 

THE  Central  Market  Halls  of  Paris  are  situated 
in  the  heart  of  the  city.  Being  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  River  Seine  and  a  mile  from  the  nearest 
railway  freight  station,  they  are  not  well  placed 
for  today's  speedy  methods  of  transporting  coun- 
try produce  from  afar.  The  "Halls"  consist  of  ten 
square  pavilions,  uniform  in  design,  ranged  in  two 
equal  rows.  Each  pavilion  covers  a  floor  area  of 
about  fifty  yards  by  fifty.  They  are  separated  by 
wide  street-ways,  all,  with  one  exception,  roofed 
in.  Thus  six  pavilions  are  massed  under  one  set  of 
roofs  and  four  under  another.  Except  the  brick 
foundations,  reaching  ten  feet  above  the  ground, 
and  having  numerous  "grill"  openings,  the  pavilion 
walls  are  of  iron  and  glass,  as  are  the  roofs,  in  the 
style  of  the  London  Crystal  Palace.  There  are  no 
upper  stories  or  galleries,  only  the  ground  floor 
being  available  for  trade.  Storage  room  is  in  the 
basement,  but  its  actual  uses  are  few,  such  as  stow- 
ing away  baskets  and  packing  cases.  There  is  no  cold 

174 


MARKETS    FOR   THE   PEOPLE         175 

storage  space  in  any  of  the  city  property ;  the  "per- 
ishable" provisions  coming  to  the  market  being 
mostly  sold  the  day  of  their  arrival.  An  electric 
light  plant  and  a  municipal  laboratory  take  up  parts 
of  the  Halls,  below  and  above  ground.  In  all,  the 
area  occupied  by  the  pavilions  and  their  covered 
ways  is,  roughly,  eight  and  a  half  acres — equaling 
that  between  Seventh  and  Eighth  avenues  and 
Forty-second  and  Forty-fourth  streets,  New  York. 
Of  the  ten  pavilions  now  standing,  the  first  was 
opened  in  1857,  most  of  the  others  before  1870, 
the  last  in  1898.  There  has  been  a  city  market  on 
the  same  site,  or  in  the  immediate  locality,  since 
the  twelfth  century.  By  two  writers  of  books  on 
the  markets  of  Paris,  the  cost  of  site  and  improve- 
ments of  the  present  Halls  is  put  at  $13,000,000. 

In  the  open,  bordering  on  the  Halls,  and  adja- 
cent in  the  streets  leading  to  it,  some  slantwise, 
forming  broad  spaces,  is  held  in  the  early  morning 
daily  (except  Monday  from  September  to  May) 
the  principal  wholesale  fruit  and  vegetable  division 
of  the  market.  As  a  whole,  the  many  connected 
parts  of  the  street  roadways  given  to  this  purpose 
are  called  "the  Square,"  a  name  coming  down  from 
the  remote  time  when  the  adjacent  square  of  the 
Church  of  the  Innocents  was  occupied  on  market 


176        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

days  by  country  produce  growers.  The  Square 
may  be  extended  at  will  in  all  directions,  indefi- 
nitely, by  taking  up  additional  adjoining  street 
space. 

The  provisions  to  be  sold  at  the  Halls,  either  in 
the  Square  or  within  the  pavilions,  begin  arriving 
at  eleven  o'clock  at  night,  brought  by  wagons  either 
from  the  railway  stations  or  from  the  country  about 
Paris  or  by  a  minor  local  freight  track  running 
direct  to  the  Halls  from  a  market  gardening  dis- 
trict near  the  city.  Three-fifths  of  the  supply 
comes  from  the  railway  freight  stations.  In  the 
Square  each  seller,  if  a  regular  attendant  at  the 
market,  takes  possession  of  a  station  he  rents  by 
the  month,  or,  if  a  transient,  goes  to  a  place  as- 
signed him  in  the  order  of  his  arrival,  the  growers 
in  an  inner  and  the  dealers  (who  must  be  owners 
of  their  loads)  in  an  outer  zone.  Much  of  the 
produce  of  one  kind — cauliflower,  beans,  peas — 
goes  to  its  particular  part  of  the  Square  for  the 
convenience  of  buyers.  All  goods  must  be  unloaded 
and  set  down  on  the  pavement,  much  being  in 
crates  or  bags.  The  draft  animals  and  wagons  of 
the  marketmen  are  taken  in  charge  by  official  guar- 
dians and  until  reclaimed  by  their  owners  stood  in 
streets  just  beyond  reach  of  the  market  traffic.  By 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         177 

this  removal  there  is  a  triple  gain  in  available 
market  space,  and  consequently  in  concentration, 
safety,  order,  cleanliness  and  general  convenience. 
According  to  the  official  reports,  the  Square  sells 
more  than  50  per  cent,  in  weight,  of  all  the  pro- 
visions arriving  at  the  Halls.  Since  1907,  a  con- 
siderable, but  variable,  adjoining  part  of  the  open 
Square,  dependent  upon  the  amount  of  consign- 
ments of  fruit  and  vegetables  to  the  licensed  com- 
mission men,  is  fenced  in  with  the  pavilions  and 
the  covered  ways,  and  by  a  fiction  of  the  adminis- 
tration included  in  official  reports  with  the  market 
Halls  proper.  One  effect  of  this  change  has  been 
to  confuse  comparisons,  in  the  annual  statistics  of 
the  markets,  between  the  proportions  of  the  busi- 
ness done  in  the  Square  and  in  the  pavilions.  Ac- 
tually, nearly  60  per  cent  of  all  the  sales  of  the 
Central  Markets,  in  weight,  take  place  in  the 
Square. 

Many  of  the  stores  and  warehouses  of  the  vari- 
ous streets  facing  the  Square  are  occupied  by  un- 
licensed commission  men.  Jointly,  these  places  of 
business  are  known  as  the  "Free  Halls/'  the  firms 
in  them  not  being  subject  to  the  market  regulations. 
The  President  of  the  Association  of  Free  Commis- 
sion Dealers  in  Fruits  and  Out-of-Season  Vege- 


1 78    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

tables  says  its  eighty  members  sell  by  wholesale  or 
retail  two-thirds  of  the  shipments  of  their  special- 
ties which  enter  Paris.  Free  dealers  in  meat  and 
in  butter,  cheese  and  eggs,  and  in  other  com- 
modities are  in  the  neighborhood.  A  decline  in  the 
sale  of  the  city  meat  pavilions  is  attributed  by  the 
chief  director  of  the  Halls  to  the  operations  of  the 
wholesale  butchers  of  the  vicinity.  The  only  large 
cold  storage  house  in  Paris,  that  beneath  the  Prod- 
uce Exchange,  adjoining  the  Halls,  is  owned  by  a 
company,  its  consignments  chiefly  meat.  The  free 
commission  men's  advantages  over  the  market- 
house  licensed  commission  men  lie  in  the  posses- 
sion of  warehouse  storage  room,  in  giving  credit, 
in  delivering  sales  by  wagon,  in  economies  in 
handling  goods,  in  either  buying  outright  from 
producers  or  selling  on  commission,  in  soliciting 
business  unrestrictedly  and  especially  in  encourag- 
ing foreign  importations,  and  in  keeping  in  hand  a 
mixed  stock,  such  as  nuts,  preserves,  canned  goods, 
and  similar  commodities,  not  regularly  sold  or  pro- 
vided in  the  Halls.  Besides,  their  sales  are  not 
confined  to  the  market  hours;  they  thus  can  save 
time  for  their  clients;  they  hold  over  produce  not 
finding  a  ready  sale  in  the  market.  They  represent 
"grand  commerce"  rather  than  "small  commerce." 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         179 

They  are  accredited  with  introducing  to  Paris  the 
Spanish  orange  and  the  Florida  grapefruit.  Their 
relations  with  shippers  and  buyers,  not  being  sub- 
ject to  official  supervision,  are  devoid  of  red-tape 
formalities.  "It  is  incontestable,"  says  the  author 
of  "Les  Halles  de  Paris/'  "that  their  transactions 
tend  to  increase."  Several  writers  on  the  subject 
say  that  their  competition  with  the  licensed  mar- 
ket-house men,  whom  they  spur  up,  is  profitable  to 
the  public.  They  themselves  complain  that  the  ad- 
ministration discriminates  against  them  and  seeks 
to  put  them  under  the  market-house  rules  without 
conferring  on  them  any  benefits.  During  market 
hours  those  of  them  fronting  the  Square  may  not 
in  displaying  their  stock  take  up  more  space  than 
half  a  meter  from  their  house  wall.  They  say  it 
is  an  injustice  to  permit  provision  dealers  not  hav- 
ing stores  or  warehouses  to  take  places  in  the 
Square,  while  they  are  excluded.  They  have  suc- 
cessfully denied  the  right  of  the  authorities  to  im- 
pose on  them  the  market  commission  license,  plead- 
ing that  other  commission  merchants  selling  mer- 
chandise of  various  kinds  throughout  the  city  are 
not  subject  to  such  prescriptions. 

Within  the  Hall  pavilions,  one-third  the  entire 
stall  space  is  occupied  by  retailers.    As  in  the  dis- 


i8o         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

trict  markets,  titles  to  the  retail  stores  are  non- 
transferable.  In  general,  the  rules  are  the  same 
as  for  the  open-air  district  markets.  But  the  Cen- 
tral retail  markets  are  open  every  day,  the  hours 
from  four  in  the  morning  to  eight  in  the  evening. 
In  the  main  fruit  and  vegetable  pavilions,  where 
the  stallholders  are  nearly  all  women,  are  283  stalls, 
two  meters  by  two,  40  being  occupied  by  flower 
vendors,  and  in  another  pavilion  the  fruit  and 
vegetable  stalls  number  82.  The  majority  of  the 
retailers  in  all  the  pavilions,  except  that  for  meat, 
are  women.  Although  street  vending,  with  its 
competition,  is  prohibited  within  several  blocks  of 
the  Halls,  the  number  of  retail  stalls  in  them  is 
steadily  diminishing.  In  1901  1,164,  there  re- 
mained in  1911  but  841  occupied  and  62  vacant. 
Row  after  row  of  little  stalls,  carrying  stocks  much 
alike,  with  quite  unvarying  prices,  strike  the  ob- 
server as  an  economic  anomaly.  They  present  no 
especial  inducement  to  the  family  custom  of  dis- 
tant residential  districts.  "Their  sole  advantage," 
said  one  of  the  market  officials,  "is  in  the  fresh- 
ness of  their  fruit  and  vegetables."  But  even  on 
this  point  there  is  doubt,  since  the  heaps  many  deal- 
ers carry  on  their  stands  over  night  suggest  that 
their  extra  storage  stalls  are  kept  replenished  from 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE         181 

the  remnants  or  a  glut  in  the  Square.  These  re- 
tail stallholders  are  the  market  descendants  of  an- 
cient small  cultivators  who  in  this  manner  sold 
their  produce  in  the  city.  Their  number  is  being 
reduced  in  part  by  the  administration  of  the  Halls 
in  increasing  the  wholesale  space,  and  in  part  by 
the  competition  of  vendors  of  all  classes  through- 
out the  city,  many  of  whom  practice  improved 
methods,  and  most  of  whom,  by  common  report, 
offer  their  patrons  more  civil  treatment  than  the 
Hall  women,  who  have  been  known  to  employ 
freely  a  billingsgate  of  their  own. 

In  five  of  the  ten  pavilions,  wholesaling  and  re- 
tailing are  carried  on  under  the  same  roof,  but  in 
two  compartments.  There  are  two  classes  of 
wholesale  stallholders.  In  the  smaller  class  are  154 
dealers — not  commission  men — who  buy  and  sell 
on  their  own  account.  Their  trade  is  restricted  to 
two  commodities — oysters  (17  dealers)  and  the 
"fifth  quarter" — the  viscera — of  slaughtered  ani- 
mals (137  dealers).  All  the  other  wholesalers, 
437  operating  239  posts,  are  merely  legalized  sell- 
ing agents,  working  on  commission. 

These  licensed  market-house  commission  men  are 
subject  to  strict  regulations ;  thirty  out  of  the  sixty- 
two  "articles"  of  the  code  relating  to  the  Halls 


1 82    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

apply  to  them.  They  must  be  French  citizens,  have 
a  clean  judicial  record,  and  give  bonds  for  at  least 
$1,000.  They  may  not  carry  on  a  commerce  in  the 
commodities  they  sell,  nor  own  a  share  in  any  pro- 
vision store  or  warehouse,  in  Paris  or  the  prov- 
inces. If  they  falsify  auction  sales,  severe  penalties 
await  them.  At  every  post,  or  stall,  must  be  kept  in 
triplicate  a  record  of  its  sales — the  book  itself  be- 
ing retained  by  the  seller,  one  stub  sent  to  the  ship- 
per and  the  other  going  to  the  authorities.  Each 
commission  man  (or  firm)  holds  for  a  year  a  post 
proportional  to  his  business  for  three  years;  he 
cannot  sublet;  he  may  sell  at  auction  or  direct  to 
single  buyers,  as  instructed  by  the  shipper;  he  can- 
not deliver  on  orders,  but  must  bring  to  the  Halls 
all  goods  shipped  to  him ;  he,  or  his  clerks,  must  an- 
nounce aloud  the  price  after  each  sale  and  at  once 
send  the  lot  sold  out  of  the  pavilion.  Every  item 
is  prescribed  which  he  may  enter  in  his  charges 
against  the  shipper — transportation,  cartage,  cus- 
toms and  octroi  duties,  market  dues,  cost  of  weigh- 
ing, letters,  telegrams,  postal  orders,  porter's  pay, 
unloading  charges,  and  costs  of  storage!  For  the 
sale  of  meats,  poultry  and  game,  and  butter, 
cheese  and  eggs,  additional  special  charges  are  per- 
missible. Sales  can  be  made  only  to  persons  pres- 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE         183 

ent  on  the  spot,  and  only  of  goods  forwarded  to 
the  market  by  producers  or  shippers — "goods  from 
first  hands" — and  not  from  speculators.  No  re- 
sales at  wholesale  of  any  commodities  are  permis- 
sible in  any  part  of  the  market. 

The  percentage  of  the  sales  at  auction  in  the 
market  commission  men's  dealings  varies  for  the 
different  commodities.  In  1911  it  was,  for  butter, 
95.1;  for  soft  cheese,  94.7;  for  hard  cheese,  7.7; 
for  eggs,  24;  for  meat,  19.8;  for  game  and  poul- 
try, 15.8;  for  fruit  and  vegetables,  17.  No  fish 
were  sold  at  auction,  though  the  two  fish  pavilions 
are  among  the  most  important  in  the  Halls. 

The  critics  of  the  system  of  auctioning  at  whole- 
sale in  the  Halls  say  that  the  sales  by  this  method 
are  diminishing;  that  the  process  is  slow,  causing 
tradesmen  to  lose  time;  that  the  poorer  qualities  of 
several  commodities,  the  leavings  after  the  day's 
stock  has  been  picked  over,  "gravitate"  to  the  auc- 
tion benches;  that,  for  instance,  while  only  17.6 
per  cent  of  all  the  sales  of  meat  for  1911  came 
from  the  municipal  slaughterhouses,  the  percent- 
age arriving  by  rail  from  distant  places  being  76.5, 
the  proportion  of  the  sales  at  auction  was  less  than 
20  per  cent,  usually  the  less  choice  cuts;  that, 
finally,  the  buyers  are  quite  invariably  dealers,  or 


1 84    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

hotel  or  restaurant  men,  and  not  consumers  repre- 
senting families.  On  the  other  hand,  the  conviction 
is  widespread  among  the  public  that  the  auctioning 
is  the  most  important  economic  function  of  the 
pavilions.  It  is  the  regulator  of  all  the  market. 
Its  prices  are  public,  certain,  recorded,  not  subject 
to  dispute,  secrecy  or  misrepresentation.  They  be- 
come known  within  a  day  to  buyers  generally,  in 
city  and  province.  Producers  can  judge  by  them 
the  trend  of  prices ;  consumers  can  know  the  profits 
of  retailers.  In  reality,  the  prices  of  most  of  the 
direct  sales  by  the  commission  men  are  governed  by 
their  auction  sales.  A  large  buyer,  seeing  the  auc- 
tion price  of  a  certain  grade  of  any  kind  of  provi- 
sions, will  give  his  order  direct  at  the  same  price. 
The  auctioning  system  forestalls  various  abuses. 
Commission  men  cannot  keep  up  market-rates 
through  collusion;  there  can  be  no  monopoly  of 
commodities  through  holding  them  back  from  sale; 
the  tendency  of  sellers  to  exaggerate  the  factors 
for  dearness  is  counteracted  by  the  opinions  of  a 
crowd  of  buyers  who  see  reasons  for  cheapness: 
artificial  interruptions  to  direct  trade  between  pro- 
ducers and  consumers  are  set  aside.  Several  suc- 
cessive handlers  of  provisions  are  rendered  un- 
necessary; no  profit  stands  between  producer  and 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         185 

consumer — nothing  but  the  commissions  of  the 
seller,  usually  three  to  five  per  cent  of  the  selling 
price.  Typical  of  the  care  with  which  every  step 
has  by  law  to  be  taken  by  the  licensed  commission 
men  is  the  daily  verification  of  the  current  market 
rates  in  all  the  wholesale  sections.  At  the  close  of 
business,  the  prices  are  officially  "established"  and 
made  public  by  a  committee  composed  of  the  prin- 
cipal Police  Inspector  and  three  of  the  commission 
men  dealing  with  each  commodity. 

The  more  striking  processes  of  the  Paris  Central 
Markets  as  a  whole  illustrate  rule  and  regulation 
striving — sometimes,  it  is  true,  in  vain — to  bring 
fair  play,  equality,  and  system  to  the  scene  of  the 
scramble  of  a  multitude  for  profit.  The  physical 
boundaries  of  the  market  end  with  the  outer  limits 
of  the  Square,  but  its  direct  commercial  influence 
spreads  to  the  Produce  Exchange  close  by,  to  the 
"Free  Halls"  of  the  neighborhood,  to  the  whole- 
sale quarter  of  the  Boulevard  Sevastopol  just  be- 
yond, to  the  great  private  markets,  two  of  which  lie 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  Halls,  and  through 
these  and  other  agencies  to  all  parts  of  France. 
The  crop  of  beans  in  one  province,  and  of  cauli- 
flower in  another,  are  sown  and  reaped  with  a  view 
to  the  demand  at  the  Halls.  De  Maroussem,  sym- 


1 86    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

pathetic  critic  of  the  Halls,  gives  these  points :  The 
numerous  gardeners  within  driving  distance,  ten 
to  thirty  miles,  hold  their  produce  back  as  they  are 
best  able,  and  maneuvre  in  their  hunt  for  buyers, 
according  to  prices  prevailing  in  Paris.  Some  of 
them,  even  on  their  road  to  the  Halls,  after  passing 
the  examination  of  the  octroi  officials  at  the  gates, 
are  open  to  selling  their  loads  in  the  lump.  Or, 
during  the  market  hours,  they  will  transfer  their 
stock  to  petty  speculators  \villing  to  run  the  risks 
of  fluctuating  prices  and  this  violation  of  the  law. 
At  the  Halls  or  at  home,  any  producer  is  usually 
glad  to  sell  what  he  is  hauling,  or  engage  what  he 
is  growing,  direct  to  a  single  buyer  representing 
private  market,  or  hotel,  or  speculator.  On  the 
ground,  at  the  Halls,  the  three  to  five  hundred 
wagons,  according  to  season,  arrive  from  the  coun- 
try and  the  freight  stations  before  the  opening 
hour.  The  day's  stock  is  unloaded  and  arranged 
before  the  bell  rings — 3  o'clock  in  the  summer,  4  in 
the  winter.  But  already  the  wise  ones,  sellers  and 
buyers,  have  gained  cognizance  of  the  supply,  its 
variety,  proportions,  and  qualities.  Picking  and 
choosing,  in  the  pavilions  and  in  the  Square,  for 
the  big  stores,  the  great  hotels,  the  high-priced  res- 
taurants— the  aristocracy  among  the  buyers — has 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         187 

been  going  on  actively;  the  illicit  agents  being  the 
hall  women,  the  porters  and  apparently  green  coun- 
trymen among  the  sellers  themselves,  delivery  to 
take  place  after  the  bell.  First  choice  thus  gone, 
at  highest  prices,  the  day's  values  settle  in  accord- 
ance with  common  judgment  as  to  the  remaining 
supply  and  the  yet  active  demand.  The  quantity 
taken  of  the  run  of  the  market  by  the  known  heavy 
buyers  is  the  largest  factor  in  setting  prices.  Word 
as  to  the  current  figures  is  passed  around.  Selec- 
tion by  buyers  then  takes  place  on  apparent  qual- 
ity, acquaintanceship,  or  bargain  finding.  All  the 
arts  of  sellers,  every  form  of  higgling  known  to 
buyers,  are  in  full  play.  An  hour  before  the  clos- 
ing bell — 8  a.  m.  summer,  9  o'clock  winter — an 
overstocked  market  sees  a  slump  in  prices.  Half 
an  hour  more  brings  to  the  Square  the  petty  specu- 
lators who  will  buy  out  the  stock  remaining  to  a 
country  producer  and  playing  off  as  his  representa- 
tive sell  it  to  late  comers.  In  the  last  moments,  a 
swarm  of  pushcart  people  and  other  small  vendors 
capture  what  is  left.  A  notable  circumstance  is 
the  small  amount  of  the  entire  stock  brought  to  the 
market  which  is  taken  away  unsold  or  put  into 
storage  under  the  Halls.  Within  the  Halls,  the 
procedure  of  the  Square  is  to  some  extent  fol- 


1 88    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

lowed,  but  there  the  hours  for  sales  at  auction  and 
at  retail  differ  for  the  various  commodities.  In 
the  rush  of  the  market  the  fine  points  of  the  code 
are  sometimes  overlooked.  Official  porters,  in 
placing  the  transient  sellers  on  their  driving  in,  may 
favor  the  heaviest  tip ;  nor  may  they,  or  other  guar- 
dians of  the  law,  look  too  narrowly  into  questions 
of  owner  or  agent,  dealer  or  speculator.  Buyers 
at  retail  may  be  accommodated  by  sellers  at  whole- 
sale. The  opening  bell  merely  signifies  publicity 
of  sales  where  there  has  been  secrecy.  The  buyer 
must  look  sharp  that  the  seller's  weights  and  meas- 
ures do  not  get  mixed,  to  the  latter's  advantage. 
The  unsophisticated  owner  of  a  heap  of  produce 
in  the  Square  had  best  keep  it,  all  of  it,  constantly 
under  his  eye.  It  is  well  that  many  of  the  various 
commodities  are  in  packages,  duly  lettered  as  to 
origin,  grade,  trade  mark  and  owner. 

The  Halls  attract  idlers,  "runners,"  porters, 
"shoestring"  peddlers,  keepers  of  soup  stands;  in 
its  vicinity  are  scores  of  restaurants  and  hotels, 
cheap  and  dear,  honest  and  "shady."  A  curious 
feature — one  of  many — is  the  hundred  or  so  of 
vendors  of  "little  heaps"  of  greens  of  all  sorts, 
mostly  old  women,  and  of  second  hand  goods  and 
cheap  knicknacks,  who  are  allowed  after  market 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         189 

hours  to  display  their  stock  on  the  sidewalk  in 
front  of  several  of  the  pavilions. 

In  its  management,  the  market  employs  a  large 
force.  The  Prefecture  of  the  Seine  is  represented 
by  322  outdoor  agents,  from  Chief  Inspector  down 
to  weighers  and  guardians,  and  the  Prefecture  of 
the  Police  by  a  market  squad  of  more  than  100 
officers  and  30  veterinaries  and  inspectors  of  sales. 
Besides,  there  are  608  official  porters,  with  400 
aids;  then  there  are  3,000  registered  porters  not 
in  the  guild,  to  do  the  carrying  outside  the  Hall 
precincts.  There  are  90  egg  candlers,  six  meat 
markers,  and  a  number  of  laboratory  inspectors 
and  employes.  Attached  to  the  markets  or  off  in 
the  City  Hall  are  bureaus  in  which  the  commis- 
sion men's  stubs  are  revised,  accounts  in  general 
checked  up,  daily  bulletins  of  the  official  prices 
current  verified  and  published,  the  city's  books  of 
the  management  kept,  and  an  annual  report  made 
out  containing  statistical  summaries  for  all  the 
market  plants  of  the  municipality. 

Employers  and  employes  in  every  branch  of  trade 
in  the  markets  are  "syndicated."  Thus  unofficial 
regulation  helps  out  the  official! 

The  rents  for  places  at  the  market  run  from  six 
cents  a  day  for  two  square  meters  in  the  Square  to 


igo         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

six  dollars  a  week  for  a  post  in  the  wholesale  meat 
pavilion.  Besides  are  tolls  on  the  quantities  sold. 
The  total  wholesale  business  of  the  Halls  proper, 
while  not  declining  in  the  same  measure  as  the 
retail,  fails  to  keep  pace  with  the  growth  of  the 
city.  Already  in  1893,  De  Maroussem  recorded  a 
large  actual  falling  away  in  their  sales  of  meat, 
fruit,  oysters,  cheese  and  butter.  While  the  popu- 
lation increased  more  than  200,000  from  1901  to 
1911,  the  wholesale  market  sale  of  meat,  game  and 
poultry,  and  butter,  cheese  and  eggs  remained 
nearly  stationary.  The  causes  for  decline  usually 
assigned  in  official  reports  are  outside  direct  sales, 
especially  to  the  big  stores,  and  the  illegal  markets 
carried  on  at  the  railway  freight  stations.  Direct 
sales  are  promoted  through  improved  facilities  of 
communication  and  transportation;  produce-ex- 
change methods  are  supplanting  those  of  the  mar- 
ket-place ;  products  are  bought,  on  sample,  in  large 
quantities  deliverable  at  future  dates.  The  rail- 
way freight  stations  are  called  by  the  Hall  officials 
"interloping  markets,"  as  no  unofficial  wholesale 
market-places  are  permitted  in  the  city.  However, 
if  a  dealer  orders  a  car-load  of  garden  stuff  from 
the  country  and  at  the  station  sells  half  of  it  to 
another  dealer,  that,  the  railroad  managers  say,  is 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         191 

not  their  business.  Thus,  a  rival  market  to  the 
Halls  finds  a  foundation,  clandestine  but  substan- 
tial. 

The  cumbrous  and  over-elaborate  official  man- 
agement of  the  Halls  occasionally  evokes  from  the 
Paris  press  the  epithet  "chinoiserie !"  Which  sig- 
nifies to  Parisians  that  in  China  the  false  motions 
of  omnipresent  bureaucratic  administration  have 
paralyzed  efficiency,  brought  a  train  of  evasions  of 
the  law,  and  muddled  results. 


XL     THE  MORIBUND  BERLIN  MARKET 

SYSTEM— ITS  LESSON  FOR 

NEW  YORK. 

WHEN  "the  public  market  system  of  Berlin"  is 
mentioned,  the  impression  given  is  naturally  that 
of  a  single  large  municipality,  comprising  the  en- 
tirety of  a  massed  population,  having  market-houses 
methodically  distributed  throughout  its  area.  This 
is  not  so.  Berlin  is  only  one  municipal  corpora- 
tion in  an  aggregate  of  many.  Its  boundaries,  im- 
aginary lines,  join  those  of  crowded  built-up  sub- 
urban municipalities,  the  streets  continuous.  Where 
Berlin  ends  and  suburbs  begin  may  be  learned  only 
on  inquiry.  Berlin  proper  has  two  million  inhabi- 
tants; the  suburbs  have  nearly  two  millions  more. 
The  limits  of  Berlin  the  city  have  a  freakish  ir- 
regularity marked  off  in  the  course  of  time  on  no 
consistent  plan  within  the  greater  metropolitan 
area.  Why  Charlottenburg,  with  nearly  three  hun- 
dred thousand  inhabitants,  its  streets  running  into 
those  of  Berlin,  its  general  appearance  that  of 
newer  Berlin,  its  people  served  by  Berlin  trades- 

192 


MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE         193 

men,  should  not  be  a  part  of  Berlin,  can  be  under- 
stood only  on  knowing  the  development  of  the  two 
municipalities,  now  apparently  one  city  and  really 
one  place.  The  market  system  which  we  have  to 
consider  is  that  of  Berlin  only,  the  heart  of  the 
total  urban  agglomeration.  Berlin  has  experiment- 
ed with  one  system  of  markets;  its  suburbs  with  a 
totally  different  system. 

Berlin's  system  was  established  between  1886  and 
1893.  The  wholesale  market  was  erected  not  far 
from  the  centre  of  the  city  proper,  and  the  district 
markets,  in  view  of  their  expected  patronage,  were 
well  placed  within  the  city  limits.  All  the  market- 
houses  are  substantially  built  of  red  brick;  their 
retail  stall  arrangement  is  rows  of  vendors'  places, 
two  meters  by  two,  the  usual  public  market  plan; 
some  parts  of  the  buildings  that  could  not  be  util- 
ized as  stalls  were  fitted  up  to  bring  in  revenues  as 
stores,  storage  rooms  and  cellars,  and  even  dwell- 
ing apartments.  Storm  doors,  stove  heating,  plenty 
of  running  water,  "sanitary  arrangements"  are  fea- 
tures of  the  market  outfit.  The  operation  of  the 
system  has  brought  no  official  scandal.  To  bolster 
up  its  business,  open-air  markets  were  forbidden, 
and  in  1898  the  sales  of  street  peddlers  near  the 
halls,  and  in  fact  in  all  the  prominent  streets  of 


194        -MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

the  city,  were  totally  suppressed.  All  was  favor- 
able to  the  undertaking,  if  setting  up  carefully 
planned  market-houses,  conducting  them  with  Ger- 
man system,  and  completely  shutting  off  public 
competition  with  them  were  to  be  the  chief  factors 
of  success. 

Berlin's  Central  Markets  are  two  brick  buildings, 
not  of  imposing  proportions,  considering  their  pur- 
poses, standing  side  by  side  in  a  closely  built-up 
street,  one  given  mainly  to  wholesale  and  the  other 
to  retail  transactions.  The  two  houses  front  on 
rather  a  narrow  thoroughfare  and  in  the  rear  join, 
above  a  yard,  a  spur  of  the  city  elevated  road  which 
serves  the  market's  freight-car  traffic.  Discharge 
of  train  loads  is  along  an  outside  platform  into  the 
halls.  On  the  remaining  sides  of  the  buildings 
space  is  wanting,  considering  the  street  traffic  in 
connection  with  the  markets. 

Together,  the  two  buildings  have  a  floor  area 
rentable  in  stalls  equal  to  two-fifths  the  stall  space 
in  the  pavilions  of  the  Paris  Central  Halls.  There 
being  no  adequate  out-door  place  for  market-gar- 
deners' wagons,  sales  are  almost  wholly  from  the 
dealers'  stalls  in  the  interior.  Thus  the  total  sell- 
ing space  becomes  less  than  one-tenth  the  total  of 
the  Paris  Central  Market  Halls  and  Square.  The 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         195 

rents,  however,  in  the  two  Berlin  houses  aggregate 
$350,000  as  against  $600,000  for  the  ten  Paris 
pavilions  or  $800,000  for  the  pavilions  and  the 
Square.  The  monopoly  of  the  city  of  Berlin  in  its 
wholesale  market  is  protected  in  its  integrity. 
Rentals  are  put  up  to  a  point  which,  short  of  driv- 
ing tenants  away,  makes  probable  the  avoidance 
of  a  deficit  in  the  annual  operations. 

In  the  interior  of  the  halls,  the  wholesale  stalls 
fail  to  suggest  by  their  size  possibilities  of  a  rush- 
ing metropolitan  business  by  the  holders.  The  rows 
of  retail  stalls  are  of  the  common  type.  Each  hall 
has  a  gallery  on  all  sides.  In  one  are  offices  of  the 
administrative  force,  but  most  of  the  gallery  space 
is  occupied  by  sample  farm  implements,  produce 
cases,  or  other  objects  in  storage,  and  not  as  deal- 
ers' stalls.  The  various  uses  of  the  two  buildings, 
known  as  No.  i  and  No.  la,  in  the  system,  are  to 
be  seen  in  this  official  estimate  of  their  receipts  for 
1912:  For  cellar  room,  No.  i,  44,000  marks;  No. 
i  a,  27,500  marks; — restaurants  and  restaurant- 
keepers'  dwelling  apartments,  i,  25,200;  la,  16,175; 
— cold  storage  room,  la,  43,000; — various  spaces 
(counting-rooms,  selling  posts  for  middlemen,  out- 
side places,  "niches,"  and  others),  i,  101,705;  la, 
II>459; — Pr°  ra*a  special  rents,  i,  720;  la,  720; — • 


196         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

water,  i,  14,300;  la,  300; — regular  standholders,  i, 
576,000;  i  a,  680,000; — transients,  i,  63,000;  la, 
93,000; — cleaning  market  police  station,  .1,  440;— 
use  of  market  railroad  freight  station,  i,  160,000; 
i  a,  160,000; — pension  assessments,  i,  140;  la,  140; 
— unclassified,  i,  3,486;  la,  3,476.  Total,  i,  989,- 
391 ;  i  a,  1,035,770  marks.  The  annual  expendi- 
tures for  1912  for  the  two  halls,  inclusive  of  inter- 
est on  outstanding  bonds  and  amortisation  and 
"writing  off"  (15,310  marks),  were  to  be,  for  No.  i, 
704,849;  No.  la,  708,109  marks.  The  excess  of 
receipts  over  expenditures  therefore  was  to  be,  No. 
i,  284,542;  No.  la,  327,661  marks.  Total,  612,203 
($153,000).  No  accounting  is  made  in  this  esti- 
mate for  the  paid-off  capital  of  the  investment  in 
the  buildings.  Nor  has  a  reserve  fund  been  formed 
to  meet  the  large  outlay  in  removing  the  market 
soon  to  a  new  site.  The  finances  of  the  system  are 
further  considered  in  Chapter  XIV. 

Auctioning  is  the  one  significant  feature  of  these 
wholesale  markets.  Large  spaces  are  set  off  for  the 
six  licensed  and  regulated  commissioners.  Late  in 
the  day  the  meat  and  poultry  auctioneers  are  busy. 
The  crowd  in  attendance  is  not  apparently  made 
up  wholly  of  dealers,  as  women,  perhaps  boarding- 
house  keepers,  buy  five  chickens  or  a  heavy  piece 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         197 

of  meat  and  carry  their  purchases  off  themselves, 
usually  in  the  German  black  oil-cloth  marketing 
bag.  The  assistant  inspector,  who  on  one  occasion 
showed  me  over  the  market,  assured  me  of  the 
importance  of  the  auction  sections.  This  point 
seems  to  be  undisputed.  The  American  Consul- 
General  at  Berlin  wrote  in  a  report  March  6,  1909: 
"Although  it  is  estimated  that  they  (the  auction- 
eers) handle  only  about  one-fifth  of  the  total  wares 
received  at  the  Central  Market  Hall,  it  is  neverthe- 
less conceded  that  they  indirectly  prevent  the  ex- 
tortion by  the  private  wholesale  dealer  upon  the 
producer  or  dealer  on  the  one  hand  and  upon  the 
consumer  or  retailer  on  the  other  hand."  In  1911 
the  auctioneers  sold,  among  other  commodities,  two 
million  "pieces'*  of  game  and  poultry. 

Of  the  ten  district  halls  in  operation  in  Berlin,  in 
1911  two  had  stall  space  rented  to  the  extent  of 
98.4  and  91  per  cent,  respectively,  although  a  fall- 
ing off  in  both  had  taken  place  from  1909,  when 
TOi.2  and  96.6  per  cent  was  reported.  For  the 
other  eight  halls  the  percentage  rented  ran,  1909, 
55.7;  1910,  50.8;  1911,  46.5.  These  are  the  aver- 
ages for  the  whole  year.  The  halls  generally  pre- 
sent one-half  to  four-fifths  of  their  stalls  bare. 

The  market  space  shown  by  the  reports  as  occu- 


1 98    MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

pied  includes  the  stalls  in  which  have  recently  taken 
place  the  municipal  sales  of  fish  and  meat.   In  Octo- 
ber, 1911,  on  a  city  appropriation,  a  municipal  busi- 
ness  (or  philanthropy)   in  cheap  sea  fish  was  be- 
gun.    On  the  one  hand,  the  market  management 
made  contracts  with  coast  fishermen,   or  dealers, 
for  the  supply,  and,  on  the  other,  contracts  with 
stall-holders  for  the  sales.     The  management  as- 
sisted in  the  selling  by  bulletin  and  poster  adver- 
tising and  by  means  of  huge  canvas  signs  in  the 
market  halls  indicating  the  location  of  the  favored 
stands.   At  the  beginning  the  number  of  the  munic- 
ipal market  fish  dealers  was  65;  in  March,  1912, 
29  remained.    The  municipality  has  also  begun,  by 
means  of  an  appropriation  of  400,000  marks,  the 
sale  of  fresh  meat.    Contractors  in  Russia,  benefited 
by  a  special  reduction  in  the  tariff,  furnish  most 
of  the  supply,  and  stall-holders  in  the  markets,  to 
the  number  of  178,  began  carrying  on  sales  on  a 
10  per  cent  commission.     The  outcome,   not  yet 
accessible  in  the  printed  reports,  evoked  from  the 
Chief  Inspector  the  opinion  that   if  the  poor   of 
Berlin   should   not  buy  this  municipally  provided 
meat  they  could  not  be  in  a  serious  state  of  dep- 
rivation. 

The   Chief   Inspector   of   the   Central    Markets 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         199 

recognizes  as  a  fact  the  rapid  decadence  of  the  dis- 
trict market  system  as  a  whole,  and  also  the  failure 
of  housed  market-stall  selling  to  bring  the  prices 
of  food  to  their  lowest  reasonable  level — a  small 
percentage  above  producers'  prices.     Summarized, 
these  are  his  explanations:    In  the  last  twenty-five 
years  the  methods  of  the  Berlin  private  provision 
dealers  have  changed;  many  now  have  what  may 
be  called  markets,  small  or  large.     The  big  stores 
of  a  certainty  possess  over  the  public  markets  the 
advantages  they  advertise.     Next,  the  rapid  spread 
of  Berlin  and  the  suburbs  has  driven  the  market- 
garden  areas  far  out  from  the  public  halls ;  no  pro- 
vision for  the  accommodation  of  producers  while 
selling  exists  in  the  city,  about  the  markets  or  else- 
where.    The  market  stalls,  once  occupied  by  pro- 
ducers, now  have  in  them  simply  dealers — middle- 
men— striving  for  profits  in  buying.     These  deal- 
ers represent  to  producers  that  the  market  is  al- 
ready overstocked,  and  in  selling  they  tell  consum- 
ers that  products  are  scarce  and  dear.     They  have 
a  trade  understanding  as  to  the  level  at  which  prices 
may  be  kept,  according  to  season,  and  rather  than 
break  this  syndicate  scale  by  a  pfennig  they  will 
let  offerings  by  the  producers  rot  and  go  to  the 
river  dump.    United,  they  have  a  sort  of  monopoly 


200        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

in  the  market  business.  They  are  not  tactful  with 
purchasers  and  they  give  no  credit.  They  fail  to 
take  account  of  newly  developed  forms  of  compe- 
tition. Consumers  of  the  poorer  class  living  a  long 
walking  distance  from  the  market-houses  save  time, 
and  perhaps  money,  in  dealing  with  neighborhood 
grocers  who  will  sell  at  market  prices ;  recently,  also, 
co-operative  stores  have  taken  a  share  of  the  trade. 
Families  who  buy  through  the  telephone  deal  with 
the  big  stores,  where  also  the  women  get  their  pro- 
visions when  shopping  for  other  goods.  In  his 
official  report  for  1911  this  inspector  mentions  as 
competitors  of  the  public  markets  the  numerous 
provision  stores  in  every  quarter,  the  big  stores 
which  carry  a  large  choice  of  stock,  the  private 
market,  the  street  vendors,  and  the  close-at-hand 
open  public  markets  of  the  suburban  towns  and 
cities. 

When  reminded  that  the  municipal  market  system 
of  Berlin  had  been  the  subject  of  much  laudatory 
descriptive  writing  by  certain  sociologists,  in  and 
out  of  Germany,  and  that  the  verdict  of  time,  after 
a  thorough  trial,  had  been  certainly  against  the  dis- 
trict halls  as  a  whole,  the  chief  Inspector  expressed 
the  conviction  that  the  trial  had  been  a  fair  one 
and  the  outcome  instructive  of  better  methods. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         201 

The  halls  had  been  well  placed,  well  conducted, 
well  protected;  the  recent  experiments  as  to  in- 
creased rentals  and  municipal  selling  of  fish  and 
meat  had  no  doubt  attained  their  best  possible  re- 
sults. The  error  had  been  in  theory,  not  in  prac- 
tice. He  was  now  convinced  that  the  true  munic- 
ipal principle  was  the  encouragement  of  street 
selling,  including  adoption  of  the  open-air  system 
of  Berlin's  suburbs.  Even  with  the  ruinous  dis- 
crimination against  them,  the  street  hucksters  of 
the  city — wagon  men  and  pushcart  people — now 
numbered  about  1,400.  He  had  decided  that  theirs 
was  a  business  beneficial  to  the  masses.  In  its 
policy  heretofore  the  municipality  had  differed  with 
the  imperial  authorities,  who  favor  selling  in  the 
open.  He  would  much  like  to  see,  especially,  fruits 
from  America  and  the  Southern  European  coun- 
tries sold  from  carts  in  the  streets  of  the  city.  The 
children  could  and  should  have  the  nourishment  of 
the  banana,  as  yet  dear  in  Berlin  and  having  little 
sale  among  its  poor.  Imported  fruit  generally  was 
"double  the  prices"  in  London.  An  effective  part 
of  the  street  peddlers'  traffic  was  the  speedy  sale  of 
any  surplus  coming  to  the  market;  in  twenty- four 
hours,  for  example,  they  had  sold  out  an  over- 
supply  of  apples,  which  otherwise  would  have  re- 


202         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

mained  on  the  hands  of  shippers  or  wholesalers. 
Thus  produce  was  not  lost  to  the  public. 

When  questioned  as  to  the  remarkable  develop- 
ment of  the  big  provision  stores  of  Berlin,  the 
Chief  Inspector  said  that  it  was  true  that  some  of 
their  prices  were  lower  than  the  market  stall-hold- 
ers' prices,  while  their  stock  was  of  greater  variety. 
They  were  doing  work  that  the  public  markets  had 
been  intended  to  do.  Their  proprietors  could  af- 
ford to  lose  on  their  provision  departments,  in 
cases  using  them  as  advertisements.  The  Inspector 
also  spoke  of  the  temporary  open-air  markets, 
which  from  time  to  time  spring  up  on  building  sites 
in  Berlin,  where  old  houses  have  been  demolished. 
His  bureau  had  in  vain  combated  them,  as  injuri- 
ous to  the  market-house  system. 

From  evidence  thus  coming  from  men  daily  in 
contact  with  the  market  operations,  as  well  as  from 
the  printed  annual  reports  of  the  "Magistrats"  who 
direct  the  management  of  the  market-houses,  it  is 
seen  that  the  advantages  of  the  semi-weekly  or  tri- 
weekly open  markets  over  the  daily  retailing  in  the 
market-houses  help  bring  to  the  latter  their  ruin. 
The  fact  gives  a  reasonable  air  to  the  query  whether 
the  Berlin  district  market  system  might  not  yet  be 
saved  by  selling  the  houses,  or  putting  them  to  other 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         203 

public  uses,  and  promoting  open-air  markets,  like 
those  of  the  suburbs,  in  the  broad  streets  or  squares 
near  their  sites. 

The  interview  with  the  Chief  Inspector,  it  is 
plain,  resulted  in  his  giving,  in  his  words  and 
printed  reports,  a  summary  of  the  stiff  fight  that 
has  been  made  for  the  life  of  a  misfit  social  insti- 
tution— -the  housed  district  permanent  market.  This 
has  had  on  its  side  in  Berlin  German  organization 
and  administration,  accompanied  with  ruthless  de- 
struction of  rivalry;  it  has  had,  conspicuously,  regu- 
lation, accounting,  bureaucratic  efficiency.  But  it 
was  based  on  "the  wrong  idea."  The  official  con- 
ception failed  to  cover  all  the  conditions  of  the 
field  the  housed  market  was  intended  to  fill.  The 
very  arrangements  for  competition  among  stall- 
holders promoted  their  combination.  The  suppres- 
sion of  open-air  selling  created  the  opportunity  of 
the  big  store. 

Of  this  rival,  whether  the  provision  store  proper 
or  the  provision  section  of  the  department  store, 
Berlin  has  witnessed  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  a 
growth  unparalleled  anywhere  in  the  world. 

After  casually  visiting  several  of  these  great  es- 
tablishments last  February,  as  on  previous  visits  to 
Berlin,  I  had  an  interview,  prompted  by  a  schedule 


204        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

of  queries,  with  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the 
largest  combined  system  of  department  and  chain 
stores  in  Europe,  his  family  having  52  establish- 
ments in  Germany  (three  in  Berlin),  20  in  Bel- 
gium, and  1 6  in  Holland.  He  recited  the  list  of 
familiar  facts  relating  to  the  growth  and  continued 
success  of  his  type  of  enterprises — namely,  world- 
wide purchases  on  an  enormous  scale,  an  efficient 
unit  organization  directed  from  a  single  centre, 
speedy  adaptability  to  changing  external  conditions, 
such  as  lopping  off  non-paying  establishments  and 
finding  out  promising  points  for  new  ones,  while 
within  transferring  employes,  enlarging  or  reduc- 
ing a  force  as  business  demands,  etc.  In  compari- 
son with  public  markets,  any  one  of  his  big  stores 
delivers  purchases,  saves  customers  time  in  buying, 
has  on  sale  grades  and  kinds  not  seen  in  the  public 
stalls,  has  the  provision  section  under  the  same 
roof  with  the  general  store,  commands  the  services 
of  trained  sales-people,  insures  weight  and  quality, 
etc.  This  big  store  proprietor,  on  being  shown  the 
official  daily  bulletin  giving  the  prices  of  the  cheap 
fish  in  the  municipal  markets,  sent  for  one  of  the 
Berlin  daily  papers  containing  his  own  advertise- 
ment and  pointed  out  that  he  was  selling  fish  of  the 
same  kind  at  or  below  the  market's  own  quoted 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         205 

prices.  He  remarked  that,  whatever  the  quality  of 
the  municipal  fish,  those  he  had  on  sale  had  passed 
the  judgment  of  experts,  just  as  his  meats  were 
examined  by  his  own  veterinarians.  Besides,  he 
showed,  he  had  in  the  day's  list  choice  fish  that  the 
municipal  market  stalls  never  sold.  He  was  obliged, 
to  hold  his  customers,  to  sell  the  finer  grades  even 
when  the  price  at  the  sources  of  supply  forbade 
any  profit.  This  dealer's  statement  is  borne  out  in 
a  United  States  consular  letter,  October  10,  1912: 
"In  certain  of  the  large  Berlin  department  stores 
which  have  fish  departments  there  is,  however,  but 
little  difference  in  the  prices  of  fish  handled  by  the 
city  and  by  the  retailers." 

The  interview  with  the  proprietor  closed,  a  com- 
petent guide  took  me  through  every  part  of  the 
vast  provision  section  of  his  main  establishment — 
in  the  salesrooms,  restaurants  and  kitchens,  in  the 
bakery,  the  storage  halls  and  packing  rooms.  Or- 
der and  cleanliness  everywhere;  neat,  well-drilled 
salesmen,  saleswomen  and  waitresses;  appointments 
of  polished  nickel,  of  glass,  of  marble;  floors  mo- 
saic, walls  glazed  brick,  ceilings  white  metal.  In 
contrast,  primitive,  of  a  certainty,  becomes  the 
barnlike  district  hall,  with  its  plain  red-tile  floors 
and  rough- wood  fittings  and  its  rows  of  cramped 


206        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

stalls,  their  one-grade  stocks  pitifully  small  and 
their  attendants,  in  many  cases,  plainly  the  poor 
survivors  of  a  languishing  trade.  One  point,  alone, 
marks  the  difference  in  methods  between  the  big 
new  store  and  the  little  old  store  of  the  public  mar- 
ket. In  the  former,  the  price  of  every  article  on 
sale  is  indicated  by  a  card;  in  the  latter,  the  price 
card  is  often  absent  just  where  it  should  give  de- 
sired information,  the  fact  suggesting  that  here  it 
requires  close  bargaining  to  bring  the  best  price  to 
the  buyer  with  nerve. 

An  enlightening  circumstance:  The  officials  of 
the  Berlin  district  market  halls,  in  their  report  for 
1911,  speak  of  the  closing  of  Hall  No.  10  as  due 
to  the  change  from  residential  to  business  occu- 
pancy of  the  quarter  in  which  it  is  situated.  But 
within  a  few  minutes'  walk  of  this  market  the 
rapid  development  of  two  department  stores,  with 
their  great  provision  sections,  has  taken  place  while 
the  public  market  has  been  coming  to  its  end. 

The  suburban  system  about  Berlin  is  that  of 
open-air  markets,  either  in  the  streets  or  in  vacant 
lots.  I  learned  from  various  sources  that  such 
markets  were  in  regular  operation  in  Maybach- 
ufer,  Boxhagen,  Friedenau,  Lichtenberg,  Steglitz, 
Schoneberg,  Wilmersdorf,  Gross  Lichterfelde,  and 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         207 

other  suburban  municipalities  or  their  subdivisions. 
On  unbuilt  private  property,  in  Born  street,  Fried- 
enau,  I  found  in  the  open,  February  i,  1913,  the 
day  after  the  heaviest  snow-storm  of  the  winter,  a 
market  of  nearly  two  hundred  stands  in  active  oper- 
ation. Each  stand,  or  several  together,  had  a  can- 
vas awning;  all  were  fitted  with  electric  lights. 
Tables,  the  arrangement  of  the  stock,  and  the  ap- 
pearance and  methods  of  the  vendors  traced  a  close 
resemblance  to  the  out-door  markets  of  Paris.  Both 
provisions  and  manufactured  goods  were  on  sale. 
Bread,  poultry,  game,  feathered  and  four-footed, 
the  usual  run  of  meats  and  delicatessen,  were  in 
plenty.  The  average  of  the  qualities  ran  high.  The 
general  appearance  of  the  dense  crowd  of  buyers 
indicated  a  well-to-do  neighborhood;  the  houses  in 
the  locality  were  not  the  abodes  of  the  poor. 

In  Lichtenberg,  after  dark,  the  same  evening,  I 
saw  an  open-air  market  of  forty  to  fifty  stands 
ranged  along  the  curb  in  a  side  street.  All  the 
usual  market  commodities  were  displayed.  The 
stock  was  of  a  cheap  order.  The  buyers  were  of 
the  poorer  working  class.  Business  was  lively. 

Among  the  most  injurious  of  the  competitors 
with  the  Berlin  district  market-houses,  as  stated  in 
the  "Magistrats'  "  report  for  1911,  is  the  out-door 


208        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

market  of  Maybach-ufer,  Neukolln.  In  operation 
within  a  mile  of  two  of  the  Berlin  "halls,"  it  has 
left  these  with,  respectively,  only  43  and  35  per 
cent  of  their  stalls  occupied. 

It  has  cost  Berlin  far  more  than  Paris  to  learn 
the  value  of  open-air  markets  for  the  masses.  The 
tax  on  its  population,  through  dearer  methods  of 
selling  produce,  has  been  many  million  marks  a 
year. 


XII.     RETAIL  MARKETING  IN  LONDON— 
THE  OLDEST  PLAN  AND  THE  BEST. 

IN  London,  any  person  who  has  for  sale  a  mar- 
ketable household  article,  perishable  or  non-perish- 
able, is  at  liberty  to  go  in  the  streets  and  offer  it 
to  the  passers-by.  He  need  have  no  license  or  per- 
mit. Necessarily,  he  will  be  subject  to  the  traffic 
and  health  laws. 

Every  borough  legislates  as  to  its  own  "market 
streets"  and  restricted  places,  but  so  few  are  the 
latter  that  to  the  sojourner  in  London  it  seems  that 
highway  and  byway  are  equally  free.  The  Metro- 
politan police  regulations  applicable  to  street  hawk- 
ers with  "barrow,  cart  or  stall,"  retaining  their 
present  form  since  1869,  are  tersely  expressed  in 
six  printed  paragraphs,  of  two  to  four  lines  each. 
By  these,  the  "barrow,  cart  or  stall"  must  not  be 
more  than  nine  feet  in  length  by  three  in  breadth; 
such  vehicles  must  not  stand  in  the  street  side  by 
side,  but  end  to  end;  they  must  remain  four  feet 
apart;  "costermongers,  street-hawkers,  and  itiner- 
ant traders"  must  remove  their  carts  out  of  the 

209 


210        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

way  of  any  inhabitant  who  has  occasion  to  load  or 
unload  any  vehicle  at  his  door;  carts  must  riot 
stand  at  a  street  crossing;  vendors  are  liable  to  be 
removed  from  any  street  or  public  way  in  which 
they  create  an  obstruction  to  the  traffic  or  where 
they  are  a  nuisance  to  the  inhabitants.  The  section 
of  the  Metropolitan  act  prohibiting  the  deposit  of 
goods  in  the  streets  does  not  apply  to  "coster- 
mongers,  street-hawkers,  and  itinerant  traders"  so 
long  as  they  observe  the  foregoing  regulations. 
These  points  are  the  gist  of  the  law  today  in  prac- 
tice relative  to  ambulant  street  vending  in  London. 
That  law  governs  a  circle  "of  which  the  centre  is 
Charing  Cross  and  the  radii  are  six  miles  in  length." 
In  London,  in  addition  to  his  (or  her)  oppor- 
tunity to  sell  while  going  about  in  the  streets,  any 
person  may  attend  as  a  vendor  the  open-air  mar- 
kets held  in  no  less  than  forty  "districts"  of  the 
metropolis.  Usually,  these  open-air  markets  are 
held  Tuesdays,  Thursdays,  and  Saturdays,  continu- 
ing late  on  Saturday  nights,  while  certain  of  them 
are  open  on  Sunday  mornings.  All  are  operated 
without  the  governmental  machinery — licenses, 
rentals,  obligatory  stall  equipment,  special  uni- 
formed inspectors,  clerks  or  bureau  employes — com- 
monly deemed  in  the  Continental  countries  essen- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         211 

tial  to  supervision.  The  right  to  his  stall-site  is 
secured  by  a  market-vendor  under  a  commonly 
recognized  rule  of  precedence.  Whatever  he  needs 
of  stall-covering,  or  other  outfit  for  his  stand,  he 
may  rent  from  any  contractor,  as  he  would,  and 
can,  hire  help.  The  street  stand-space  for  the  mar- 
ket is  usually  not  limited.  The  newest  arrival  takes 
last  place.  These  markets  are  in  many  cases  for 
manufactured  articles  as  well  as  for  products  of 
the  soil.  Fruit  and  vegetable  stands  may  alter- 
nate along  the  sidewalk  curb  with  others  occupied 
by  butchers,  postcard  vendors,  or  crockery  or  hard- 
ware dealers. 

Attempts  of  administrative  authorities  at  inter- 
ference with  London's  traditional  street-market 
customs  have  been  in  vain.  In  1893  and  again  in 
1901  the  London  County  Council  Public  Control 
Committee  investigated  the  existing  street  markets 
with  a  view  to  reorganizing  them  and  housing  their 
stallkeepers.  But  in  the  end  no  change  was  found 
expedient.  The  reports  of  these  two  investigations 
are  illuminating  as  to  the  unalterable  facts,  but 
their  recommendations,  with  their  drawings  of  pro- 
posed market-houses,  now  rest  among  the  archives 
of  Utopians.  In  1893,  the  number  of  the  "unau- 
thorized"— that  is,  free — street  markets  was  112, 


212        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

with  5,292  stalls;  in  1901,  no,  with  7,055  stalls. 
Of  the  latter,  4,529  stalls  were  for  perishable  goods 
and  2,526  for  non-perishable.  In  1901,  19  street 
markets  in  London  had  each  more  than  100  stalls. 
Seven  of  these  had  each  more  than  200;  one  had 
575.  Of  the  5,292  stalls  in  the  112  markets  in 
J893,  79°  belonged  to  shopkeepers  and  4,502  to 
costermongers.  On  this  point,  the  report  reads : 
"We  desire  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  these  figures 
only  apply  to  the  stalls  .  .  .  and  do  not  include 
isolated  stalls  or  barrows,  although  many  of  these 
may  keep  fixed  positions."  Other  interesting  state- 
ments of  the  report  are :  "It  will  be  found  that  the 
street  markets  are  in  nearly  every  case  placed  in 
the  midst  of  or  adjacent  to  working-class  districts." 
"The  unauthorized  street  markets  of  London  un- 
doubtedly fill  a  most  useful  purpose.  They  are 
practically  confined  to  poor  and  crowded  neighbor- 
hoods, and  are  largely  the  means  by  which  the  sur- 
plus produce  remaining  unsold  in  the  authorized 
markets  are  distributed  amongst  the  poorer  classes. 
Costermongers  are  keenly  alive  in  ascertaining 
when  produce  is  at  exceptionally  low  prices,  and 
are  always  ready  to  purchase  and  distribute  an  al- 
most unlimited  quantity  when  that  is  the  case.  By 
this  means  the  humble  consumer  is  frequently  able 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         213 

to  purchase  food  at  a  lower  price  than  it  has  been 
quoted  wholesale  at  the  authorized  market,  as  the 
costermonger  is  enabled  to  resell  his  goods  at  very 
low  profits,  his  expenses  being  small."  "The  only 
semblance  to  retail  markets  which  exist  in  London 
are  the  informal  markets  established  by  the  coster- 
monger  in  the  public  streets,  which,  as  is  well 
known,  are  quite  unauthorized."  Speaking  of  the 
dead  Columbia  Market,  the  report  says :  "It  was 
originally  intended  for  a  general  market,  but  failed 
to  attract  dealers,  chiefly  because  costermongers 
prefer  freedom  from  restraint  or  regulation,  and 
immunity  from  rent  or  other  charges,  which  they 
enjoy  in  the  streets."  In  70  cases,  the  attitude  of 
the  local  shopkeepers  toward  the  more  important 
street  markets  was  ascertained:  "In  no  less  than 
60  cases  a  large  majority  of  the  adjacent  shop- 
keepers is  in  favor  of  the  retention."  In  six  cases 
there  was  indifference;  in  four  hostility.  An  in- 
quiry by  the  investigating  committee  brought  out 
from  the  London  vestries  and  district  boards  an 
opposition  to  registering  or  licensing  vendors  in 
the  unauthorized  markets  that  could  not  be  over- 
come. No  proposal  to  license  the  ambulant  costers 
was  even  mentioned.  The  two  investigations 
evoked  the  usual  points  of  the  opponents  to  street 


214         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

vending — nuisance,  litter,  impediment  to  traffic,  etc. 
But  as  a  final  result  no  change  whatever  could  be 
made.  Not  even  the  "one  experimental  market 
shelter"  the  Chief  Officer  asked  for  was  erected. 
His  well  circulated  maps,  plans,  proposals,  and  or- 
dinances— nicely  printed — are  today  in  demand 
among  public  records  becoming  scarce.  The  cos- 
ters and  their  customers — that  is,  the  masses  of 
London — know  what  they  want  in  the  way  of 
markets. 

The  London  open-air  markets  have  in  the  course 
of  time  adapted  themselves  to  the  needs  of  their 
respective  groups  of  customers.  A  cheap  grade  of 
temporary  costermonger  markets,  such  as  that  of 
Leather  lane,  spring  into  existence  at  different 
points  of  the  metropolis  at  the  noon  lunch  hour  of 
factory  employes  and  office  boys,  to  dissolve  when 
their  usual  customers  have  gone  back  to  work. 
Poor  people's  permanent  markets,  like  those  of 
White  Cross,  Charlton  and  Berwyck  streets,  are  held 
in  neighborhoods — East  End,  northern  or  central 
— long  known  also  for  their  cheap  shops  of  every 
kind.  Sunday  morning  markets  have  been  held 
for  generations  in  several  localities,  especially  in 
the  East  End,  most  of  them  famous  for  their  spe- 
cialties. Petticoat  Lane — not  a  "lane"  in  fact,  but 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         215 

a  series  of  streets  and  small  squares — has  as  its 
"leaders"  clothing,  haberdashery,  trinkets,  cloths 
and  factory-made  odds  and  ends;  Club  Row  has  a 
bird  market  and  a  dog  market — rather  an  expen- 
sive one,  with  pedigreed  dogs;  Bethnal  Green  road 
has  a  cycle  market.  On  Friday,  in  Caledonian 
road  is  a  remarkable  collection  of  "second  hand" 
articles,  many  of  them  evidently  having  had  a  line 
of  successive  owners.  Apart  from  all  these  marts, 
to  some  of  which  bargain  hunters  crowd  by  thou- 
sands, are  the  high-grade  open-air  borough  mar- 
kets, held  semi-weekly  or  tri-weekly,  where  prod- 
ucts of  first  quality  are  in  demand  by  the  multi- 
tude, including  people  having  well-lined  pocket- 
books. 

A  direct  result  of  London's  reasonable  freedom 
of  the  streets  for  ambulant  and  stationary  vendors, 
the  circumstances  of  proper  time  and  place  ob- 
served, has  been  the  development  of  marketing  con- 
ditions which  have  established  a  solid  starting  point 
for  all  other  forms  of  retailing  provisions.  With 
streets  free  to  vendors  and  free  trade  a  national 
principle,  and  without  the  clog  of  licenses  or  simi- 
lar burdens,  London's  system  of  marketing,  pub- 
lic and  private,  may  be  accepted  as  approximating 
to  the  natural  conditions  of  commerce  under  equal 


2i6        ^MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

rights.  The  basis  for  the  system  being  free  indus- 
try and  free  trade  calls  at  the  very  start  for  equal 
rights  in  the  highway.  Abandon  that  basis  and 
the  result  would  be  the  instability  of  every  method 
of  selling  built  on  the  stilts  of  restriction.  With 
these  factors  of  freedom  firmly  established  in  the 
customs  of  the  people,  all  methods  of  retailing  be- 
come secure  in  their  foundation.  It  is  evident  that, 
in  a  city  which  has  its  streets  closed  to  "pushcart" 
vending  and  to  open-air  markets,  costlier  methods 
of  marketing  are  given  an  artificial  opportunity  to 
develop.  The  "protection"  of  closed  streets  with- 
drawn would  put  in  jeopardy  whatever  business 
had  depended  on  it — either  public  market-house  or 
private  establishment.  Hence  projects  for  "co-oper- 
ation," for  improved  methods  of  retailing,  for 
eliminating  certain  categories  of  middlemen,  take 
secondary  place  in  logical  arrangement  to  recog- 
nition of  the  right  of  all  the  members  of  the  com- 
munity in  the  highways.  Were  those  rights  opera- 
tive, many  commercial  schemes  to  reduce  the  cost 
of  living  might  prove  superfluous;  selling  in  the 
streets  would  set  them  aside.  The  just  start  is  the 
first  question. 

As  a  fact,  London's  use  of  free  market  sites  is 
accompanied  by  certain  significant  circumstances  in 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         217 

other  local  retailing  systems.  The  metropolis  has 
fewer  co-operative  stores  than  any  other  equal 
population  in  the  kingdom;  the  provision  section  of 
the  "big  store"  has  less  development  than  in  any 
large  city  of  America  or  France  or  Germany;  the 
retail  market-houses  of  fifty  years  ago  have  gone 
out  of  existence,  and  all  the  new  ones  recently 
built  have  been  failures ;  American  fruit  in  London 
streets  is  cheaper  than  in  New  York  stores.  These 
facts,  taken  together,  indicate  a  factor  in  selling 
which  influences  alike  all  other  forms.  That  fac- 
tor cannot  be  other  than  the  seller  in  the  open — • 
the  competitor,  supplanter,  survivor  of  so  many 
other  middlemen.  The  relation  of  cause  and  ef- 
fect exists  between  the  large  volume  of  trade  done 
by  the  street  vendor  and  the  small  volume  done  by 
his  various  classes  of  rivals. 

These  assertions  are  worth  while  examining  in 
some  detail. 

The  annual  statistical  returns  published  by  the 
British  Co-operative  Union  show  for  London  a 
noticeably  small  proportion  of  co-operators  to  popu- 
lation as  compared  with  all  other  parts  of  the  king- 
dom. Mr.  E.  O.  Greening,  a  co-operative  official, 
in  1899  worked  out  the  proportion  of  co-operators 
to  population  in  the  fifteen  commercial  cities  and 


2i8         (MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

towns  of  Great  Britain,  except  London,  having  a 
population  of  100,000  and  upward  (including  Man- 
chester, Birmingham  and  Sheffield),  to  be  one  to 
nineteen.  In  London,  it  was  one  to  two  hundred 
and  fifty.  Extraordinary  efforts  had  repeatedly 
been  made,  at  great  expense,  to  envelop  London  in 
the  national  co-operative  movement.  Since  that 
time  there  has  been  somewhat  of  an  improvement, 
but  the  proportion  for  London  remains  not  a  tithe 
of  that  for  the  rest  of  the  country.  Mr.  Green- 
ing, in  his  paper,  referred  to  "the  exceptional  com- 
petition in  great  cities"  with  co-operation.  But  in 
catering  to  the  wants  of  the  masses  no  other  class 
of  its  competitors  ranks  in  effectiveness  with  the 
street  vendors.  "The  co-operators  here  have  the 
costermongers  and  street  markets  as  competitors," 
was  repeatedly  the  reply  to  one  of  my  scheduled 
questions  in  London,  the  same  as  was  given  at  co- 
operative headquarters  in  Paris  in  regard  to  the 
latter  city.  In  what  he  sells,  the  pushcart  vendor 
does  better  for  the  people  than  the  co-operative 
store. 

The  provision  section  of  the  great  department 
store  set  up  in  London  six  years  ago  by  experienced 
Chicago  merchants  has  been  closed.  Also,  in  the 
greatest  of  London's  undertakings  of  this  type, 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         219 

situated  favorably  in  the  northwestern  district  for 
a  business  with  well-to-do  "middle  class"  families, 
the  provision  section  is  a  small  affair  as  compared 
with  similar  divisions  of  the  great  retail  houses  of 
Berlin  and  New  York.  Varieties  are  there,  espe- 
cially of  the  finer  dry  groceries,  out-of -season  fruits 
and  vegetables,  and  imported  luxuries  for  the  table, 
but  of  garden  produce  or  common  market  articles 
heavy  stocks  are  not  carried.  As  to  the  question 
whether  the  number  of  the  lesser  grocery  stores  of 
London  is  much  smaller  than  if  street  selling  were 
prohibited  to  the  same  extent  as  in  Berlin,  it  would 
seem  to  the  observer  comparing  without  data  that 
they  certainly  are.  To  decide  this  point  by  statis- 
tics would  present  difficulties;  classification  of  es- 
tablishments in  different  countries  may  lack  uni- 
formity. A  retail  grocery  in  Paris  may  have  large 
sales  of  wine,  in  bottles  or  barrels,  and  in  Germany 
of  beer,  while  in  London  it  would  have  neither.  In 
its  report,  "Cost  of  Living  in  American  Towns," 
1911,  the  Commission  of  the  Labor  Department, 
British  Board  of  Trade,  deemed  it  worthy  of  no- 
tice that  in  New  York  "a  common  appendage  to 
the  grocer's  or  sometimes  the  butcher's  shop  is  a 
permanent  fruit  and  vegetable  stall,  often  elabor- 
ately and  tastefully  arranged,  which  flanks  the  en- 


220        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

trance  to  the  main  establishment/'  In  England 
this  sort  of  store  might  count  two.  Moreover,  as 
to  the  financial  struggles  of  a  grocery,  it  is  not  its 
competitors  only  which  may  give  it  its  quietus,  but 
the  unreasonableness  of  a  landlord.  A  reduction 
in  rent  might  let  the  grocer  live.  For  this  accom- 
modation there  can  be  no  statistics. 

With  respect  to  retail  market-houses,  in  1861  J. 
Robert  de  Massy,  investigating  for  the  agricultural 
department  of  France  the  market  system  of  Lon- 
don, reported  eleven  retail  markets  then  in  opera- 
tion. They  were  all  in  private  hands.  They  were: 
Portman,  Oxford,  Hunger  ford,  Clare  street,  St. 
George's,  Brooker,  Mayfair,  Paddington,  Newport, 
Newgate,  and  Lambeth  Walk.  Not  one  of  these 
is  in  existence  now.  Portman  market  at  Maryle- 
bone,  in  the  northwest,  was  a  large  venture  ex- 
tending over  many  years.  After  being  closed  for 
a  term,  it  was  reopened  in  1901  by  Viscount  Port- 
man and  regained  an  appearance  of  prosperity — 
sufficient  to  bring  down  upon  it  criticism  from  one 
of  the  schools  of  municipal  reformers.  In  a  leaflet, 
"The  Scandal  of  London's  Markets,"  the  London 
Reform  Union  mentions  Portman  as  one  of  the 
two  markets  which  in  1904  were  holding  the  five 
millions  of  London's  population  "at  their  merty" 


MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE    221 

"in  respect  of  the  bulk  of  the  food."  The  remedy 
was  "to  sweep  away  this  monopoly."  Portman 
market  has  since  indeed  been  "swept  away,"  not, 
however,  by  political  reformers,  but  by  the  inabil- 
ity of  its  managers  to  make  it  pay.  Within  recent 
years,  two  noteworthy  attempts  have  been  made  in 
London  to  set  up  housed  retail  markets  on  a  large 
scale.  Both  were  semi-philanthropic  in  their  foun- 
dation. One  of  them,  established  near  the  "Ele- 
phant and  Castle,"  in  Walworth,  on  the  Surrey,  or 
south,  side  of  the  Thames,  was  backed  by  Sir  Sam- 
uel Plimsoll.  It  failed.  To  the  other,  Baedeker's 
"London,"  for  1905  (page  34)  directs  attention — 
Columbia  market,  Bethnal  Green,  "erected  by  the 
munificence  of  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  at  a 
cost  of  £200,000,  for  supplying  meat,  fish,  and 
vegetables  to  one  of  the  poorest  quarters  in  Lon- 
don." In  January  last,  my  companion,  a  warden 
of  the  port  of  London,  in  a  visit  to  East  End  mar- 
kets, said:  "Columbia  market  is  now  a  failure, 
shut  up  and  derelict." 

I  asked  the  provision  manager  of  Whiteley's  why 
market-houses  failed.  He  replied:  "First,  stall- 
keepers  cannot  buy  on  the  most  economical  meth- 
ods. They  haven't  the  means,  can't  independently 
cover  a  big  territory  in  their  purchases,  can't  look 


222        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

over  the  quantities  and  qualities  of  different  dis- 
tricts in  the  country  and  pick  out  what  best  suits  a 
varied  custom.  They  must  take  what  the  day's 
wholesale  market  is  selling.  They  can  do  little  in 
following  the  motto,  'Well  bought,  half  sold.'  Next, 
a  housed  market  on  the  old  style,  with  many  little 
stalls,  has  no  head,  to  buy  and  sell  for  all  the  vol- 
ume of  the  trade  coming  in  and  going  out.  A 
capable  manager  not  only  buys  economically,  but  he 
organizes  selling  efficiently.  He  knows  that  most 
of  his  customers  want  to  buy  in  the  shortest  time, 
and  he  has  stock  and  salespeople  ready  for  them. 
In  a  general  market,  with  two  or  three  hundred 
stalls,  no  one  controls,  directs,  and  plans  for  all. 
The  losses  in  these  shortcomings,  with  the  neces- 
sary expenses  of  a  stall,  are  enough  to  throw  the 
balance  the  wrong  way  for  the  housed  marketman. 
There  may  be  additional  faults  in  municipally 
owned  and  operated  stall  markets,  but  it  is  the  sys- 
tem which  is  antiquated,  even  for  the  private  ones. 
I  do  not  prophesy  that  they  will  all  disappear;  I 
say,  however,  as  a  fact  that  I  can  name  a  number 
of  them,  in  London  and  the  provinces,  which  have 
disappeared." 

During  more   than   a  decade^    while  municipal 
ownership  was  yet  in  the  stage  of  optimistic  inex- 


MARKETS    FOR    THE    PEOPLE         223 

perience,  its  advocates  in  London  were  earnestly  at 
work  to  house  the  costermongers  and  the  open-air 
market  people.  "The  London  Manual"  for  1906 
thus  described  the  results  of  their  efforts  to  that 
date:  "The  City  Corporation  [one  of  the  thirty 
subdivisions  of  the  metropolitan  district]  has  for 
many  centuries  been  the  market  authority  for  Lon- 
don, but  the  London  County  Council  [representing 
all  the  thirty  subdivisions],  whilst  agreeing  that  the 
great  central  markets  which  supply  the  whole  of 
London  should  be  under  central  control,  contends 
that  the  smaller  retail  markets  should  be  estab- 
lished and  looked  after  by  the  various  local  au- 
thorities. As  a  step  in  this  direction,  the  London 
County  Council,  under  its  General  Powers  Act 
(1903),  obtained  powers  [from  Parliament]  for 
the  local  authorities  to  promote  shelters  for  street 
traders,  and  the  local  authorities  are  authorized  to 
make  a  small  charge  for  the  accommodation.  The 
local  authorities  will  bear  the  whole  cost  of  these 
structures."  This,  it  may  be  observed,  was  written 
in  the  vein  of  confident  planning  for  beneficial  pub- 
lic changes  habitual  at  that  time  with  the  compilers 
of  the  "Manual" — a  year-book  of  the  collectivist 
municipalists.  Model  designs  for  the  proposed  cov- 
ered markets,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  published 


224        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

by  the  County  Council.  However,  not  only  did 
rate-payers  object,  but  the  "costers"  let  the  authori- 
ties know  that  they  would  not  be  relegated  to  stalls 
in  "shelters,"  but  would  contend  for  their  ancient 
rights  to  vend  in  the  streets.  The  "municipaliza- 
tion  of  markets"  came  to  naught. 

The  commerce  of  the  costermongers  of  London, 
singly  roving  the  streets  or  together  gathered  in  an 
open-air  market,  is  accepted  by  the  mass  of  Lon- 
doners as  a  metropolitan  institution  of  primary  im- 
portance. The  "coster"  has  his  place,  in  song  and 
story,  in  verse  and  picture,  as  one  of  London's  best- 
known  characters.  He  is  of  the  people;  for  the 
people.  As  to  what  may  be  the  number  of  coster- 
mongers  engaged  actively  at  their  occupation,  with- 
in that  circle  whose  diameters  of  twelve  miles  con- 
verge at  Charing  Cross,  no  authoritative  statement 
can  be  made.  As  early  as  1861  De  Massy  reported 
"probably  40,000!"  He  quotes  a  statement  from  a 
census  of  1851  that  "the  costermongers,  hawkers, 
the  retail  market  dealers,  and  the  stallkeepers"  were 
then  estimated  at  30,000. 

At  Scotland  Yard,  the  Superintendent  of  Police 
whom  I  interviewed  did  not  venture  an  estimate. 
He  remarked  that,  besides  costermongers,  there  are 
two  other  classes  of  street  vendors,  "certificated" 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE         225 

peddlers  carrying  a  pack,  who  pay  a  license  fee  of 
five  shillings,  and  hawkers  with  horse  vehicles,  who 
pay  two  pounds  sterling.  These,  strictly  regulated, 
may  not,  for  example,  ring  door  bells;  must  be 
seventeen  years  of  age ;  must  carry  with  them  their 
"papers"  giving  age,  height,  and  general  descrip- 
tion. In  1911,  the  certificated  hawkers  alone  num- 
bered 6,205.  The  New  Yorker  in  London  sees,  with 
memories,  the  street  vendors  plying  their  trade 
where  congestion  is  greatest.  On  Wednesday,  Janu- 
ary 21,  last,  I  counted  in  Ludgate  Hill  and  Fleet 
street,  between  St.  Paul's  and  the  Law  Courts,  a 
distance  of  half  a  mile,  more  than  forty  curbstone 
peddlers,  a  fourth  of  them  women,  selling  toys, 
shoestrings,  matches,  flowers,  trifles  by  the  penny's 
worth,  and  fifteen  pushcart  men,  mostly  selling 
fruit.  Women  flower  vendors  are  at  many  shop- 
ping centres  of  London — Regent  street,  Piccadilly, 
Oxford  Circus,  Westbourne  Grove. 

As  to  costermongers'  prices  a  general  note, 
printed  in  "Dickens'  Dictionary  of  London"  for 
1880,  regarding  wholesale  prices  at  Covent  Gar- 
den and  the  retail  prices  of  stores  and  costermon- 
gers,  remains  good  today: 

"Auctioneers  stand  on  boxes,  and  while  the  more 
expensive  fruits  are  purchased  by  the  West  End 


226         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

fruiterers,  the  cheaper  are  briskly  bid  for  by  the 
costermongers.  Listen  to  the  prices  at  which  the 
fruit  sells,  and  you  will  wonder  no  longer  at  the 
marvelous  bargains  at  which  these  itinerant  ven- 
dors are  able  to  retail  their  fruit,  although,  perhaps, 
you  may  be  astonished  when  you  remember  the 
prices  at  which  you  have  seen  the  contents  of  some 
of  these  boxes  marked  in  fruiterers'  shops." 


That  is,  the  West  End  shops  sell  dear.  On  the 
other  hand,  near  the  open-air  markets,  and  at  the 
points  where  on  other  than  market  days  the  push- 
cart men  congregate,  the  petty  shopkeepers'  prices 
skim  along  close  to  those  of  the  street. 

In  London,  as  in  Paris  and  Berlin,  markets  of 
all  kinds,  even  the  decaying  market-houses,  attract 
to  their  neighborhood  stores  selling  the  same  com- 
modities as  are  in  the  market.  These  yield  a  liv- 
ing to  clever  tradesmen  and  a  fair  rent  to  land- 
lords wise  enough  not  to  squeeze  their  tenants  dry. 
The  outside  grocer,  or  butcher,  or  provision  dealer, 
competing  with  a  market,  in  order  to  live  must 
keep  shop  open  every  day  all  possible  hours,  have 
a  good  variety  in  his  stock,  deliver  purchases,  give 
credit,  and  "study  to  please."  In  London,  as  in 
Paris  and  also  in  New  York,  the  story  of  proposed 
open-air  markets  being  protested  against  by  store- 
keepers in  general,  to  be  subsequently  strongly  ad- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         227 

vocated  by  those  nearest  the  market  sites,  is  famil- 
iar. "In  the  Faubourg  St.  Martin,"  said  a  resident 
of  that  locality  in  Paris,  "the  provision  store  keep- 
ers first  petitioned  to  have  the  street  vendors  for- 
bidden to  come  near  them,  and  when  that  was  done 
by  the  police  they  begged  that  they  be  permitted 
to  return."  In  the  Roman  Road  district,  in  Lon- 
don, the  pavement  of  a  street  having  been  arranged 
for  a  costers'  market  the  shopkeepers  who  were  to 
be  faced  by  it  objected.  The  market  being  estab- 
lished at  another  site,  a  few  hundred  yards  be- 
yond, the  crowd  of  buyers  followed  it,  and  the 
objectors,  finding  their  trade  vanishing,  hastened 
to  invite  the  street  vendors  to  come  and  be  near 
them.  But  their  opportunity  was  gone,  the  store 
property  they  rented  or  owned  lowered  in  value. 
Another  phase  of  the  question  is  presented  when 
it  is  the  costermongers  who  insist  on  their  rights  to 
remain  at  a  given  point,  as  in  the  recent  case  of 
Farringdon  street.  Costermongers  there  were  driven 
by  the  police  from  a  line  along  the  curb  they  had 
long  occupied.  They  carried  their  cause  up  to 
Parliament,  where  they  won.  They  are  back  at 
their  old  places. 

Working-class  London  in  general,  and  much  of 
middle-class  London  as  well,  buy  the  bulk  of  their 


228         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

perishable  necessaries  from  ambulant  pushcart  ven- 
dors or  at  the  open-air  markets.  The  system  is  at 
once  the  most  ancient  and  the  most  modern.  It  is 
the  cheapest  of  all  systems — efficient,  natural,  demo- 
cratic, rightfully  communistic.  It  often  gives  the 
masses  double  rations. 


XIII.     LONDON'S    MIXED    WHOLESALE 

SYSTEM— NO  MODEL  FOR  NEW 

YORK. 

LONDON'S  wholesale  markets  are  not  concen- 
trated, either  in  location  or  ownership.  The  Covent 
Garden  market,  for  fruit  and  vegetables,  is  pri- 
vately owned,  its  proprietor  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 
At  several  of  the  railway  freight  stations  are  large 
"potato"  warehouses,  not  officially  classified  as  mar- 
kets, but  at  which  produce  in  season — potatoes, 
turnips,  celery,  cabbage — is  dealt  in  at  wholesale. 
The  City  Corporation — that  is,  the  local  authority 
for  the  ancient  centre  of  London  known  as  "the 
City,"  having  a  corporate  existence  and  adminis- 
tration apart  from  the  twenty-eight  boroughs — - 
has  control  of  the  entire  public  wholesale  system, 
even  of  markets  lying  outside  its  limits,  in  several 
of  the  boroughs.  The  only  "authorized"  markets 
controlled  by  local  authorities  are  a  few  minor 
concerns,  chiefly  retail  in  their  dealings — the  larg- 
est the  Borough  Market,  already  mentioned,  White- 
chapel  Hay  Market,  and  the  far-off  Woolwich 

Market. 

229 


230        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

Covent  Garden  Market  lies  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  river,  by  which  few  of  its  supplies  are 
carried,  and  so  far  from  the  railway  freight  sta- 
tions as  to  make  the  hauling  from  them  by  wagon 
a  considerable  item  in  cost.  Its  location  is  in  every 
respect  unrelated  with  present  ideas  of  municipal 
efficiency.  This  generation  of  its  sellers  and  buyers 
have  inherited  the  habit  of  going  there;  to  break 
the  habit  would  require  a  social  effort  and  heavy 
cash  in  buying  out  its  owner's  charter  and  prop- 
erty. The  market  was  started  through  the  act  of 
a  monarch,  who  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half 
ago  bestowed  through  it  an  exclusive  privilege  on 
one  of  the  nobility; — in  precise  terms,  Charles  II 
in  1671  granted  site  and  charter  to  William  Duke 
of  Bedford,  whose  heirs  have  since  continuously 
"carried  on  the  business."  Its  volume  of  trade 
grew  with  the  population  of  London,  though  far 
from  proportionately.  But  of  recent  years  it  has 
declined,  especially  in  several  branches.  The  area 
of  Covent  Garden  is  about  seven  acres,  partly  cov- 
ered with  the  historic  "colonnade"  erected  in  1831 
and  other  stall  shelters  strikingly  incongruous  in 
architecture.  It  was  for  many  years  hemmed  in 
by  narrow  streets,  making  it  difficult  of  access.  To 
remedy  this  defect  neighboring  buildings  by  the 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         231 

score  were  removed,  but  neither  the  market  nor  its 
approaches  have  yet  any  room  to  spare.  The  con- 
gested quarter  in  which  it  lies  is  mainly  given  over 
to  business,  no  branch  of  which  today  attracts  the 
world  of  fashion.  Nothing  except  the  street  no- 
menclature remains  of  the  aristocracy  which  once 
dwelt  on  the  convent  square  and  in  the  neighbor- 
ing streets;  no  dandies  or  dainty  ladies,  such  as 
those  of  Thackeray's  day,  come  now  to  promenade 
in  the  galleries  of  the  main  building.  Butlers, 
cooks,  hotel  managers,  shopkeepers,  flower  girls 
and  costermongers  today  buy  the  flowers  and  fine 
fruit  in  "the  Avenue"  and  the  "French  market," 
the  latter  so  called  from  the  considerable  part  of 
its  stock  arriving  daily  from  France,  some  of  it 
from  distant  Nice.  Buyers  and  sellers,  elbowing 
one  another  in  the  early  morning's  pack,  are  hard- 
working people,  intent  on  the  trade  that  means  to 
them  their  livelihood. 

The  administration  of  the  market  is  business- 
like. As  at  the  Paris  "Square,"  incoming  wagons 
are  discharged  at  once  on  their  arrival  and  then 
driven  away.  The  piles  of  produce  rise  high  above 
the  heads  of  the  crowd.  The  costlier  stock  goes 
in  the  roofed  buildings.  The  market  hours  are 
brief — from  dawn,  or  earlier,  to  eight  o'clock.  In 


232        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

one  of  the  buildings  is  a  hall  in  which  the  auction- 
eering of  potatoes  and  other  vegetables  chiefly  takes 
place.  In  inclosed  squares  on  each  side  "the  Ave- 
nue" are  the  fruit  auctions.  The  number  of  mar- 
ket officials  is  small;  their  offices  a  few  bare  rooms 
in  the  low  upper  story  of  a  corner  of  the  main 
building.  Superintendent,  collectors,  sub-collectors, 
office  clerks,  attendants,  and  constables  are  paid 
from  "the  estate."  The  number  of  porters  is  nec- 
essarily large,  700  to  800.  They  receive  "tuppence 
a  turn"  from  the  produce  owners  for  their  labors. 
The  tenancies  of  the  stalls  are  weekly;  the  rents, 
twelve  shillings  to  five  pounds,  inclusive  of  water, 
taxes,  repairs,  and  general  gas ;  flower  stands,  seven 
to  ten  pounds  a  year;  "pitching  stands,"  fifteen  to 
twenty-two  pounds.  The  stands,  however,  are  not 
of  uniform  size;  some  are  in  open  rows,  others 
separated  by  partitions,  like  street  shops.  Coster- 
mongers  pay  one  shilling  to  enter  the  market.  Cas- 
ual wagons  pay  a  toll  of  half -penny  a  bushel;  the 
highest  toll,  two  shillings.  The  long  lines  of  mar- 
ket-gardeners' wagons  from  the  vicinity  of  London 
have  yearly  an  increased  average  distance  to  travel, 
as  the  zones  of  possibly  cultivable  lands  become 
more  remote  from  the  market.  Many  wagons,  the 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         233 

marketmen  say,  come  from  points  twenty  miles 
from  London. 

As  to  the  amount  of  marketing  business  done  at 
London's  railway  freight  yards,  or  at  water  termini, 
no  statistics  are  to  be  had.  Obviously,  direct  orders, 
from  town  dealer  to  country  producer,  coming 
through  these  channels  are  not  considered  as  part 
of  the  trade  of  any  market;  yet  their  prices,  if  not 
ruled  by  market  prices,  are  affected  by  them,  and 
vice  versa.  The  splitting  up  among  many  buyers 
at  the  freight  termini  of  shipments  ordered  by  large 
dealers  through  mail,  telegraph  or  telephone  may 
be  the  result  of  previous  combined  orders  or  of  a 
form  of  marketing  on  the  spot.  The  fact  of  the 
arrivals  of  the  goods  is  there;  the  facts  as  to  their 
sale  or  resale  are  obscure;  persons  interviewed  on 
this  point  recognized  the  facts  and  there  their  in- 
formation ceased — new  markets  may  not  break  in 
where  protection  of  existing  charters  is  likely  to  be 
enforced.  However,  nice  discrimination  between  a 
"market"  and  a  "depot"  is  required  to  put  under 
the  latter  heading  the  sales  of  "potatoes  and  vege- 
tables" carried  on  at  the  big  Great  Northern  and 
the  Midland  Railway  freight  stations. 

The  central  authority  for  the  wholesale  public 
markets  of  all  London,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the 


234        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

City  Corporation,  which,  to  begin  with,  seems  to 
an  American  an  anomaly  in  local  government,  much 
as  if  the  First  Ward  of  New  York  were  to  own 
and  direct  our  metropolitan  hospitals.  In  1911  "the 
City"  had  a  night  population  of  19,657,  a  day  popu- 
lation of  364,061  (persons  actively  engaged  in  the 
City  during  the  day  time),  while  the  number  of 
persons  entering  it  on  the  census  day  was  1,077,155. 
But  the  London  market  system  has  come  down  with 
time,  and  not  only  have  the  reformers  of  this 
generation,  despite  their  efforts,  failed  to  remedy 
its  incongruities,  but  they  have  been  compelled  to 
stand  aside  while  these  were  made  worse;  the  Lon- 
don County  Council's  attempts  to  readjust  the 
wholesale  market  ownership  and  administration  of 
the  metropolis  have  for  twenty  years  been  frus- 
trated at  every  important  point.  The  stubborn  City 
fathers  refuse  to  be  reformed. 

In  "the  City"  are  situated :  The  London  Central 
Markets,  Smithfield,  the  most  important  ( for  meat, 
poultry  and  "provisions,"  wholesale;  with  sections 
for  fish  and  vegetables,  wholesale  and  retail)  ;  Sat- 
urdays, retail  for  all  commodities; — Billingsgate 
and  Billingsgate  Buildings  (fish,  wholesale)  ;  and 
the  minor  markets,  Leadenhall  (meat,  game,  poul- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE   PEOPLE         235 

try,  and  provisions  in  general,  wholesale  and  re- 
tail), and  Smithfield  hay  market. 

Without  "the  City"  lie:  The  Foreign  Cattle 
Market,  at  Deptford,  down  the  Thames  (for  the 
landing,  sale  and  slaughter  of  animals),  the  larg- 
est in  the  kingdom ;  the  Metropolitan  Cattle  Market, 
Islington,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  metropolis 
(cattle,  sheep,  hogs)  ;  and  two  other  markets  worthy 
of  being  named  only  because  of  their  decadence, 
Shadwell,  in  an  East  End  borough  (fish  chiefly), 
and  Spitalfields,  in  Stepney,  East  End  (general,  re- 
tail). These  four  markets  are  two  to  three  miles 
outside  the  boundaries  of  "the  City",  owner  and 
operator. 

Smithfield  Market,  as  it  is  commonly  called, 
officially  "The  London  Central  Markets,"  is  half 
a  mile  north  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  and  the  same 
distance  northwest  of  Guildhall,  the  City's  municipal 
building.  Smithfield's  area  is  nearly  eight  acres; 
its  site  has  a  history  as  public  grounds  and  market- 
place dating  from  the  thirteenth  century;  it  was 
long  in  later  times  a  cattle  market,  founded  in  1614. 
Its  present  main  buildings,  sheltering  the  meat  mar- 
ket, were  erected  i862-'68.  These,  together  cov- 
ering three  and  a  half  acres,  are  630  feet  long,  245 
feet  wide,  and  30  feet  high.  The  roof  is  of  glass, 


236        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

with  iron  beams.  Besides  a  basement  cold-storage 
plant  there  is  in  a  substructure  a  freight  station  of 
100,000  square  feet,  rented  to  the  Great  Northern 
Company  and  connected  with  several  railways.  The 
Poultry  and  Provision  Market,  which  stands  to  the 
west  next  the  main  building,  was  opened  in  1876; 
its  dimensions  are  260  by  245  feet.  Beyond  it 
is  the  General  Market,  built  i885-'92,  having  sec- 
tions for  fruit  and  vegetables,  and  poultry,  fish, 
flowers  and  "provisions"  (in  the  grocers'  sense). 
The  several  markets,  with  their  long  brick  fronts, 
form  an  imposing  pile — one  of  the  monuments  of 
London. 

The  meat  market  is  the  largest  in  the  world.  It 
gives  employment  to  9,000  persons.  The  amount 
of  the  deliveries  of  meat  in  it  have  increased  from 
323,085  tons  in  1892  (of  which  69,495  were  from 
"America")  to  433,724  in  1911  (of  which  only 
29,048  tons  were  "English  killed"  from  Canada  and 
the  United  States  and  8,022  tons  "chilled"  and 
"frozen"  from  the  same  countries).  The  Report 
of  the  Central  Markets  Committee  for  1911,  by  the 
way,  says:  "In  the  last  quarter  of  the  year  the 
quantity  of  'chilled'  beef  received  from  the  United 
States  was  very  small,  and  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses may  be  said  to  have  ceased ;  also  the  numbers 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         237 

of  live  cattle  from  that  country  are  rapidly  becoming 
a  negligible  quantity."  The  proportion  of  the  meat 
sold  at  Smithfield  produced  in  Great  Britain  was 
22.4  per  cent ;  in  the  colonies  and  foreign  countries, 
77.2.  Nearly  one-half  the  receipts  of  beef  are 
South  American.  Of  the  total  imports  of  meat 
to  the  United  Kingdom,  41.3  per  cent  comes  to 
Smithfield.  The  comparative  importance  of  the 
Meat,  Poultry,  and  "Provision"  Markets  at  Smith- 
field  with  its  Fish,  Fruit,  and  Vegetable  Markets  is 
shown  in  these  figures :  Total  rents  for  the  former, 
£87,700;  for  the  latter,  £9,500;  the  tolls,  imposed 
by  weight,  were,  respectively,  £48,191  and  £136,  the 
fruit  and  vegetable  section  being  practically  exempt 
of  this  charge.  So,  the  meat  market  is  the  market. 
The  operation  of  the  market  is  simple.  The 
weights  of  meats,  poultry,  and  "provisions"  deliv- 
ered by  certain  carriers  and  railway  companies  are 
merely  "declared"  when  previously  ascertained, 
thus  accelerating  delivery  and  lessening  congestion 
of  traffic,  but  otherwise  arrivals  pass  over  a  weigh- 
bridge. Officially,  the  four  sections  of  the  Central 
Markets  are  thus  tenanted:  Eastern,  75  "sales- 
men"; Western,  69;  Poultry  and  Provision,  45; 
Central  General  Market,  109.  But  actually  there 
are  622  stalls,  or,  as  locally  named,  "shops,"  400  of 


238         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

which  are  wholesale.  All  lettings  are  weekly.  The 
rentals  average  two  pence  per  week  per  square  foot 
of  ground  space.  The  rent  includes  water  supply, 
desk  and  gas  fittings  and  maintenance  of  steel  meat 
rails  and  hooks,  with  floor  space  above  the  "shop" 
(where  there  is  a  lavatory).  The  tolls  amount  to 
one  farthing  on  every  twenty-one  pounds  sold,  or 
one  one-hundred-and-fortieth  of  the  value.  There 
is  no  Sunday  market.  Meat  is  received  from  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning  until  one  in  the  afternoon 
from  April  to  September  and  an  hour  later  the 
rest  of  the  year;  exceptions,  Friday  until  four  and 
five,  and  Saturday,  the  year  'round  until  eight, 
evening.  No  meat  is  allowed  to  leave  the  market 
until  five  in  the  morning. 

The  Central  Markets,  taken  together,  are  "the 
main  distributive  centre  for  the  metropolis  and 
surrounding  places,"  as  stated  in  an  official  circu- 
lar. "The  tenants  are  chiefly  commission  men  and 
carcass  butchers.  The  former  receive  the  goods 
and  sell  them  on  commission  for  the  benefit  of  the 
sender.  The  carcass  butchers  buy  and  slaughter 
the  cattle  elsewhere,  and  bring  them  into  their 
own  shops  in  the  market  to  sell.  Other  tenants 
again  buy  from  both  these  parties  and  cut  up  the 
meat  for  the  special  purposes  of  the  retail  trade, 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         239 

thus  enabling  a  butcher  to  acquire  the  parts  best 
suited  to  his  business." 

The  Metropolitan  Cattle  Market  and  the  Foreign 
Cattle  Market,  Deptford,  are  primarily  obligatory 
centres  of  inspection  for  the  public  health  depart- 
ment; they  are  for  this  purpose  municipally  owned 
and  regulated  stock  yards  and  slaughter  places; 
only  secondarily  do  they  possess  the  character  of 
markets,  although  sales  of  the  animals  and  the  meat 
are  their  commercial  side.  At  the  Metropolitan, 
animals  once  within  gates  never  pass  out  alive;  so 
there  is  no  spread  of  disease  through  separation 
after  being  herded  together.  At  Deptford,  every 
animal  is  inspected  by  veterinary  officers  on  arrival 
and  slaughtered  within  ten  days.  Were  it  not  for 
these  essential  measures  for  the  sanitary  protec- 
tion of  British  cattle  and  the  British  people,  the 
cattle  markets  of  the  metropolis  might  well  be  vari- 
ously placed  and  otherwise  organized.  In  no  wise 
are  they  examples  for  New  York. 

The  Metropolitan  took  over  the  live  cattle  busi- 
ness of  Smithfield  Market  in  1855,  and  until  1872, 
when  Deptford  was  opened,  received  cattle  from 
foreign  countries.  Its  supplies  are  steadily  dimin- 
ishing. In  1903,  the  beef  cattle  arriving  numbered 
72,960;  in  1911,  52,834.  The  total  arrivals  of 


240        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

"beasts,"  sheep,  calves,  pigs,  and  other  animals, 
for  the  following  six  years  show  the  waning  im- 
portance of  the  market :  1903,  616,545  ;  1904,  606,- 
179;  I9°S»  562,632;— 1909,  424,615;  1910,  422,- 
642;  1911,  403,373.  An  official  statement  for  1912 
attributes  the  decreasing  business  of  this  market 
to  heavy  railway  charges  for  live  freight,  new  mar- 
kets near  London,  non-compensation  in  cases  of 
seizure  for  tuberculosis,  and  the  development  of  the 
chilled  and  frozen  meat  trade.  Prior  to  1908  there 
were  23  private  slaughter  houses  in  the  market; 
public  ones  are  now  provided,  the  tolls  a  head 
charge. 

The  Foreign  Cattle  Market,  Deptford,  was 
opened  January  i,  1872.  An  impression  of  its 
operations  is  to  be  gained  in  these  statistics :  Area 
(Old  Admiralty  Dock),  30  acres;  length  of  dock 
940  feet;  "lairage"  accommodation,  8,500  bullocks 
and  20,000  sheep;  slaughter  houses,  66;  chill-room 
space,  sufficient  for  4,500  sides  of  beef;  average 
time  for  landing  500  cattle  from  a  ship,  20  min- 
utes; number  of  shiploads  of  animals  discharged 
in  1911,  213;  number  of  steamers,  owned  by  "the 
City,"  used  in  trans-shipments  from  ocean  vessels, 
3;  number  of  beef  cattle  arriving  in  1909,  122,223; 
1910,  96,768;  1911,  99,078.  The  live  cattle  importa- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE        241 

tions  from  the  United  States,  which  began  in  1879, 
numbered  up  to  1911,  3,144,400;  largest  number 
in  one  year,  1890,  157,631;  the  decline  has  been 
steady  from  1905  (145,210)  to  1911,  71,366.  In 
the  thirty-two  years  since  the  opening,  the  num- 
ber of  sheep  arriving  has  been  330,540;  pigs  and 
calves,  negligible.  Number  of  persons  employed, 
1,900. 

The  Billingsgate  Fish  Market,  wholesale  and  re- 
tail, the  oldest  market  of  "the  City,"  situated  on  the 
Thames,  apart  from  all  other  markets,  has  been  in 
existence  more  than  a  thousand  years,  according  to 
"A  Statement  of  the  City  of  London,"  made  Oc- 
tober, 1893,  to  a  royal  commission.  The  arrivals 
on  business  days  during  the  last  three  years  have 
averaged  more  than  600  tons;  total  arrivals  for 
1909,  196,321  tons;  1910,  198,934;  1911,  194,477; 
but  each  year  usually  brings  an  increase — 1902, 
156,357;  i9°3»  l63>897;  I9°4»  I74,6o6;  1905,  157,- 
336.  The  market  reports  classify  the  fish  as  "land- 
borne"  (brought  to  the  market  by  the  railways) 
and  "water-borne,"  the  number  of  vessels  arriving 
with  fish  in  1911  being  1,765.  In  1911,  the  percent- 
age of  land-borne  was  62.2;  of  water-borne  37.8. 
The  Superintendent,  in  his  report  for  191 1,  remarks : 
"Keen  competition  with  consignments  direct  to  the 


242        MARKETS    FOR   THE   PEOPLE 

fishmongers  from  the  coast  is  very  manifest 
amongst  the  trade  generally."  Billingsgate  imposes 
both  rentals  on  stalls  and  tolls  on  weights,  the  lat- 
ter bringing  in  one- fourth  the  revenue  of  the 
former;  besides  are  a  dozen  lesser  items — for  gas, 
water,  offices,  etc. — nothing,  apparently,  being 
"thrown  in"  as  at  Smithfield.  Billingsgate,  offi- 
cially included  in  the  London  market  system,  is  an 
undertaking  separate  from  every  other  part. 

Leadenhall  Market,  in  the  heart  of  the  City,  near 
the  Bank  of  England,  is  on  a  site  used  as  a  market 
for  four  hundred  years.  Closed  for  some  years,  it 
was  reopened  in  December,  1881,  at  a  cost  of 
£247,800.  It  is  a  general  market;  no  tolls  are 
levied;  the  volume  of  business  is  unknown.  Pub- 
licity regarding  it  is  made  mostly  through  its  fi- 
nancial reports,  to  be  dealt  with  subsequently.  Lead- 
enhall today  is  a  historical  accident. 

Shadwell  Market  is  now  out  of  use.  The  City 
Corporation  has  decided  to  convert  it  into  a  recrea- 
tion ground,  as  a  memorial  to  the  late  King  Edward. 

Spitalfields  Market  is  interesting,  not  so  much  as 
a  market  as  an  illustration  of  the  prevalence  of  an- 
cient law  over  present  convenience  in  certain  of 
London's  public  affairs.  In  1682  Charles  II  granted 
to  John  Balch,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  the  right  to 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         243 

hold  a  market  "in  or  near  a  place  called  Spittle 
Square" — and  there  the  market  has  been  held  ever 
since.  A  Mr.  Horner  bought  the  lease  of  the  mar- 
ket in  1882  for  84  years  at  £10,000  a  year.  To 
improve  it  he  pulled  down  133  houses  on  its  site 
which  had  produced  £7,000  a  year  rent.  About  the 
time  when  Mr.  Horner  had  put  his  new  market  in 
order  a  railway  company  began  to  set  up  a  market 
within  a  few  blocks  of  Spitalfields,  and  on  his 
bringing  suit  for  infringement  of  charter  the  com- 
pany pleaded  a  charter  issued  by  Edward  III,  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  in  which  it  was  said  that 
"no  market  within  seven  miles  round  about  the 
City  shall  be  granted  by  us  or  our  heirs  to  any  one." 
Mr.  Horner,  to  defend  his  rights,  was  obliged  to 
carry  his  suit  up  to  the  House  of  Lords — Charles 
II  vs.  Edward  III,  the  favor  of  a  monarch  dead  for 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  against  the  gift  of  a 
monarch  dead  for  five  hundred  years !  Mr.  Horner 
won. 

The  area  of  Spitalfields  market  is  two  and  three- 
quarter  acres,  of  which  about  an  acre  and  a  half 
is  covered  by  a  structure  of  glass  and  iron.  The 
number  of  regular  stands  is  118;  tolls,  two  shillings 
a  wagon,  one  and  sixpence  a  cart;  a  sixpence  off 
to  stall-renters.  "Potatoes  and  roots"  pay  one  shill- 


244         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

ing  a  ton;  fruit  one  penny  a  sack  or  box,  a  half- 
penny a  bushel,  twopence  a  crate.  The  clerk  of  the 
London  County  Council  has  reported:  "The  tolls 
charged  at  Spitalfields  seemed  to  be  more  reasonable 
than  those  charged  at  the  Borough  Market  and  Co- 
vent  Garden."  For  years,  in  the  municipalizing 
period,  the  London  County  Council  was  petitioned 
for  relief  from  time  to  time  by  persons,  perhaps 
politicians,  alleging  grievances  against  Spitalfields; 
the  market  being  "without  metes  and  bounds,"  tolls 
were  imposed  by  its  owner  on  the  vehicles  bringing 
produce  and  standing  in  the  streets  about  it,  the 
market  itself  having  insufficient  accommodation.  Mr. 
Horner  several  times  asked  the  Whitechapel  District 
Board  to  take  the  market  over.  In  1898,  the  Lon- 
don County  Council  decided  to  seek  Parliamentary 
powers  to  acquire,  by  agreement  or  compul- 
sorily,  its  freehold  and  other  interests,  and  the  next 
year  a  provisional  contract  was  entered  into  with 
the  freeholders  for  purchase  of  their  interests  for 
£170,000  and  £1,250  for  costs.  But  the  City  Cor- 
poration interposed,  pleading  its  antecedent  market 
rights.  After  the  clashing  City  and  County  had 
maneuvred  in  Parliament  and  in  committees  for 
several  years,  and  the  Borough  of  Stepney  had 
taken  on  it  an  option  of  a  lease,  the  market  free- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         245 

hold  in  1903  became  the  property  of  the  City  Cor- 
poration, the  purchase  price  being  £180,201.  The 
City  is  now  negotiating  for  the  stall  leaseholders' 
interests.  Spitalfields  has  nothing  to  teach  New 
York  except  that  it  made  money  for  Mr.  Horner 
and  now  loses  money  for  the  City. 

Just  beyond  the  edge  of  the  territory  covered  by 
Covent  Garden's  charter  rights,  extending  six  miles 
and  three-quarters  in  all  directions,  two  consider- 
able wholesale  fruit  and  vegetable  markets  have 
been  established — one  at  Stratford,  to  the  north- 
east of  the  metropolis,  founded  by  the  Great  Eastern 
Railway  Company,  the  other  at  Kew  Bridge,  to  the 
southwest.  The  latter  came  gradually  into  being 
through  the  market-gardeners  of  the  district  making 
sales  at  the  bridge  on  their  way  to  Covent  Garden. 
They  found  this  selling  was  legal,  sold  out  on  the 
spot  if  they  could,  and  thus  shortened  their  day's 
work.  So  the  market  "was  born  and  grew." 

In  this  review  it  is  seen  that  what  London  has 
done  in  establishing  and  operating  wholesale  mar- 
kets affords  little  guidance  on  the  subject  for  New 
York.  The  major  legal  influence  in  maintaining 
London's  system,  private  and  public,  as  it  is,  is  "the 
dead  hand" ;  the  next  powerful  is  the  national  policy 
of  protection  to  public  health  and  to  the  meat  ani- 


246         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

mals  of  the  kingdom.  The  present-day  conception 
by  Londoners  of  what  their  metropolitan  wholesale 
market  system  should  be  has  had  little  or  no  in- 
fluence. Certain  of  the  operating  details  in  the  mar- 
kets are  worthy  attention.  But  as  a  whole  New 
York  may  best  learn  from  the  system  what  to 
avoid. 


XIV.     DO   MUNICIPAL   MARKETS   "PAY"? 

A  PUBLIC  market  has  a  two-fold  character.  First, 
it  is  a  social  institution;  secondly,  it  is  a  financial 
undertaking.  It  may  be  of  benefit  to  a  community 
without  being  remunerative  to  the  municipality. 
That  is,  a  market  might  "pay"  in  a  figurative  sense 
as  the  East  River  bridges  "pay"  Greater  New  York, 
while  in  the  proper  sense  capital  invested  in  it 
might  be  sunk.  The  vital  purpose  of  a  market, 
whether  wholesale,  housed  retail,  open-air  retail,  or 
pushcart,  is  to  put  producer  and  consumer  in  the 
closest  relations  possible.  The  financial  result  to 
the  municipal  treasury  is  a  minor  consideration. 

Any  project  for  establishing  wholesale  markets 
in  New  York  might  be  seriously  damaged  should 
judgment  be  passed  upon  it  solely  in  the  light  of 
the  evidence  as  to  whether  the  other  capitals  of 
our  civilization  comparable  with  New  York  are 
earning  an  interest  on  the  investments  in  their 
wholesale  markets,  not  to  speak  of  their  entire  mar- 
ket systems.  For,  assuredly,  on  this  point  London, 
Berlin,  and  Paris  each'  gives  little  encouragement 

247 


248        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

to  the  investigator  who  will  look  beyond  the  mere 
tabulations  of  the  annual  receipts  and  expenditures 
in  an  official  report  and  examine  all  the  accounts 
from  the  beginning,  or  for  the  series  of  years  hav- 
ing a  direct  bearing  on  present  values  and  opera- 
tions, as  he  would  those  of  a  private  undertaking. 

During  the  last  twelve-month  three  pamphlets,  is- 
sued from  official  or  semi-official  sources,  advocat- 
ing municipal  wholesale  markets  in  the  five  bor- 
oughs have  been  placed  before  the  New  York  public, 
and  the  statistics  of  markets  given  by  the  authors 
for  this  country  and  abroad  have  been  widely  ad- 
vertised as  data  for  assistance  in  weighing  the 
wholesale  market  problem  seriously.  These  pam- 
phlets are  "Municipal  Market  Policy/'  by  the  Presi- 
dent of  The  Bronx,  and  "Modern  Municipal  Mar- 
kets" and  "A  Terminal  Market  System,"  both  by  a 
member  of  the  Advisory  Board  of  the  New  York 
Terminal  Market  Commission.  In  offering  correc- 
tions to  these  pamphlets  I  shall  refer  to  them  as 
Nos.  i,  2,  and  3. 

Relative  to  Covent  Garden,  London,  No.  2  has 
this :  "It  is  in  the  ownership  of  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford, who  makes  a  huge  profit  out  of  it,  though 
he  and  his  father  have  spent  $730,000  on  modern 
buildings."  Of  the  same  property  No.  3  says:  "As 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         249 

it  is  under  private  ownership  no  figures  are  issued, 
but  there  is  known  to  be  a  huge  profit  on  the  mar- 
ket." Last  January,  at  the  office  of  the  Bedford 
estates,  the  attention  of  the  management  being 
called  to  this  assertion,  an  interview  brought  me 
these  authoritative  statements :  "Covent  Garden 
Market  is  private  property.  No  reports  of  its  fi- 
nances are  made  public.  No  particulars  relative 
to  its  income  or  outlay  are  divulged.  Its  accounts 
can  not  be  strictly  separated  from  those  relating  to 
the  property  surrounding  it,  all  being  a  part  of  the 
Duke's  estate.  The  improvements  of  the  streets  in 
the  vicinity  have  a  relation  to  the  revenues  of  the 
market.  There  is  no  publication  giving  authorized 
reports  as  to  its  recent  receipts  and  expenditures.'' 
The  representative  of  the  estate  further  mentioned 
these  points :  ''The  conditions  of  selling  in  the  Co- 
vent  Garden  Market  are  much  changed  in  the  last 
forty  years,  and  especially  the  last  twenty.  The 
larger  buyers  purchase  on  samples  shown  in  the 
market,  the  produce  being  then  delivered  direct, 
the  market  thus  losing  the  tolls.  Ordering  by  tele- 
phone is  common,  not  only  between  customers  and 
shopkeepers  in  or  out  of  the  market,  but  between 
dealers  in  town  and  those  in  the  country.  Changes 
are  continually  taking  place  in  methods  of  trans- 


250         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

portation  and  sources  of  supply.  The  metropolis 
now  covers  much  ground  that  was  formerly  given 
to  market  gardening  for  Covent  Garden,  and  with 
the  removal  of  the  gardeners  or  their  quitting  the 
business  the  market  has  been  detrimentally  affected 
The  gallery  is  no  longer  the  fashionable  promenade 
of  forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  This  is  typical  of  the 
general  changes."  The  representative  said  it  would 
be  useless  to  try  to  ascertain  the  present  profit  or 
loss  on  the  market.  "Nothing  is  divulged,"  he  re- 
peated. 

At  the  market  itself  and  in  the  neighborhood,  I 
interviewed  standkeepers  and  permanent  shopkeep- 
ers. They  could  tell  of  many  changes  in  the  mar- 
ket, of  a  positive  falling  off  in  its  business  propor- 
tionately to  population,  of  the  passing  of  the  Lon- 
don produce  dealers  from  the  market  and  the  com- 
ing of  foreigners.  The  retail  trade  in  foreign  prod- 
uce has  nearly  vanished.  As  to  a  "huge  profit"  all 
were  doubtful.  Several  spoke  of  the  possible  value 
of  the  site  of  seven  acres  for  other  business.  An 
official  of  the  County  Council  whose  position 
brought  him  in  contact  with  the  general  market 
situation  of  London  said  that  he  knew  of  no  cur- 
rent reliable  financial  statement  regarding  Covent 
Garden.  M.  de  Massy,  in  1 86 1,  wrote  of  it:  "The 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE        251 

gross  proceeds  amount  to  about  £10,500,  two-fifths 
of  which  is  absorbed  by  the  expenses  of  operation/' 
In  a  chapter  of  Charles  Booth's  ' 'Labor  and  Life 
of  the  People,"  1891,  Mr.  E.  C.  Grey  wrote  that 
the  average  annual  receipts  of  Co  vent  Garden  were 
then  £25,000  and  the  expenditures  £10,000.  "But," 
he  added,  "against  the  £15,000  remaining  £150,000 
has  been  spent  in  buildings  alone  since  1828  and 
much  has  been  done  toward  widening  the  streets 
and  in  pulling  down  houses  to  enlarge  the  area 
around  the  market."  The  London  County  Council 
market  investigation  of  1893  gave  the  market  a 
net  income  of  £24,660  on  the  operation  for  the  year 
1889.  This  did  not  include  interest  on  the  im- 
provements, the  expenditures  for  which  in  the  last 
century  were  £150,000,  nor  on  the  site  value.  The 
Duke  of  Bedford's  inclination  to  part  with  the  mar- 
ket may  be  significant.  He  has  offered  four  times 
to  sell  it — to  the  City  Corporation,  to  the  old  Metro- 
politan Board,  and  twice  to  the  London  County 
Council  in  the  early  days  of  its  municipalization  ven- 
tures. But  it  is  still  on  his  hands.  The  facts  ac- 
cessible fail  to  indicate  its  "huge  profits." 

Of  the  public  market  systems  controlled  by  the 
City  Corporation,  pamphlet  No.  2  says:  "On 
Smithfield  markets  there  is  a  profit  to  the  City  of 


252       ^ARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE 

$100,000,  Billingsgate  brings  in  a  surplus  of  $40,- 
ooo,  Leadenhall  $5,000,  and  allowing  for  losses  on 
the  cattle  markets  there  is  a  net  gain  to  the  City  of 
$156,000  a  year."  No.  3  gives  the  same  figures, 
closing  in  these  words :  "On  the  entire  municipal 
market  enterprises  of  the  City  there  is  a  profit  of 
$156,000." 

Inasmuch  as  the  argument  of  the  three  pam- 
phlets in  view  is  addressed  to  the  New  York  public 
for  the  purpose  of  proving  that  city  investments  in 
terminal  markets  here  could  be  expected  to  "pay" 
as  the  authors  allege  they  have  paid  in  London,  that 
public  is  entitled  to  know  the  facts  in  the  matter 
as  they  actually  are.  In  an  official  statement  given 
out  at  Guildhall  in  1912  is  this  paragraph:  "All 
the  Corporation  markets  have  been  reconstructed 
during  the  last  half  century,  and  the  capital  expendi- 
ture on  the  markets  since  that  time  has  amounted 
to  nearly  £4,000,000  sterling."  Therefore,  if  the 
markets  have  a  profit  of  $156,000,  they  must  earn 
that  amount,  net,  over  operating  expenses,  deprecia- 
tion, expenditures  for  maintenance  and  interest  on 
investment.  No  profit  comes  to  a  private  under- 
taking until  it  has  met  these  debtor  items. 

But  in  a  "Statement  to  the  Royal  Commission," 
issued  by  a  Guildhall  City  Council  Committee  in 


MARKETS    FOR   THE   PEOPLE         253 

October,  1893,  is  this  passage:  "Up  to  1892,  on 
Corporation  Markets  (reconstructed  or  enlarged 
since  1854)  the  market  accounts  show  an  expendi- 
ture of  £30,000  beyond  receipts."  In  this  state- 
ment the  values  in  the  properties  existing  previous 
to  1854  were  not  taken  into  account.  The  question 
now  turns  on  whether  profits  of  the  system  since 
1892  have  made  up  the  previous  losses.  In  1902, 
the  City's  appropriation  to  buy  Spitalfields  took 
£180,201,  raised  by  a  bond  issue.  This  market  has 
since  been  operated  at  a  steady  loss;  in  1911  its 
expenditures  in  excess  of  receipts  were  £2,807.  In 
1905,  the  appropriation  for  the  purchase  of  Shad- 
well  was  £140,844;  in  1911,  its  deficit  on  the  year's 
operations  was  £1,335.  ^  was  closed  as  a  market 
last  year,  a  failure.  In  making  it  a  recreation 
ground,  what  did  the  loss  to  the  City  market  system 
then  sum  up,  in  annual  deficits  and  first  cost,  on  this 
entire  transaction?  While  Leadenhall  Market  is 
credited  in  1911  in  the  books  of  the  Chamberlain 
with  receipts  of  £849  in  excess  of  expenditures,  the 
outstanding  loans  on  the  market  proper  being  £99,- 
ooo,  his  books  for  the  market  department  carry  a 
separate  item  of  £148,000  relating  to  the  Leaden- 
hall  "approaches."  An  addition  to  Billingsgate  Fish 
Market,  the  "Billingsgate  Buildings,"  was  made  in 


254        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

1890.  For  years  it  was  in  part  unoccupied,  its 
steady  losses  paid  by  the  old  market.  "For  the 
first  time  since  the  opening  in  1890,  the  whole  of 
the  standings  were  occupied  by  dry  and  shell  fish 
men"  reads  the  report  for  these  buildings  for  1911. 
The  average  annual  deficit  on  the  Metropolitan  Cat- 
tle Market,  which  after  its  removal  to  Islington 
from  Smithfield  in  1855  amounted  for  years  to  £6,- 
ooo,  was  paid  from  "the  City's  cash" ;  in  1892,  this 
deficit  was  £14,579;  in  1911,  £5,071;  in  1910,  £5,- 
662.  The  deficit  for  the  Deptford  Foreign  Cattle 
Market  in  1911  was  £3,642,  and  the  excess  of  its 
liabilities  over  its  assets  was  £170,379.  For  the 
Deptford  railway  a  separate  account  appears  in  the 
report;  receipts,  1901,  £499;  outlay,  £6,835.  As  to 
the  present  financial  status  of  the  entire  City  mar- 
ket system,  the  Chamberlain's  report  for  1911  shows 
nearly  £4,000,000  in  loans  outstanding.  To  wit: 
Formation  of  the  Metropolitan  Cattle  Market, 
£400,000;  completion  and  slaughter-houses,  £78,- 
ooo;  London  Central  Markets,  £1,968,700;  Billings- 
gate enlargements,  £278,500;  Leadenhall,  rebuild- 
ing, £99,000;  Leadenhall,  avenue  approaches,  £148,- 
800;  Spitalfields  £180,000;  Shad  well  £140,000; 
Foreign  Cattle  Market,  £587,700;  total,  £3,881,- 
300.  In  1902,  the  loans  outstanding  amounted 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE         255 

to  £3,137,800;  in  1907,  before  the  purchase 
of  Shadwell  and  Spitalfields,  the  amount  was 
£2,707,500.  In  the  operation  of  the  system 
for  1911,  including  interest  on  loans,  the 
receipts  were  £35,300  in  excess  of  expenditures. 
To  get  at  "profits"  deduction  must  be  made  from 
this  sum  of  the  interest  (£40,000?)  on  the  "re- 
constructions and  enlargements"  paid  for  and  on 
whatever  values  remain  of  the  property  existing 
prior  to  1854,  unless  the  theory  should  prevail  that 
when  a  public  utility  is  paid  for  it  ceases  to  be  a 
financial  undertaking  and  becomes  a  social  institu- 
tion, which  involves  the  complicated  notion  that  the 
percentage  of  the  debt  paid  off  is  social  while  that 
to  be  paid  is  financial !  Besides,  to  be  accounted  for 
are  depreciation  (heavy  at  Deptford),  and  possibly 
items  on  the  margin  between  strictly  market  ac- 
counts and  other  accounts  in  part  relating  to  them 
but  carried  in  the  Chamberlain's  books  under  other 
headings.  At  the  City  Clerk's  office,  when  one  of 
the  officials  told  me  that  the  Corporation  markets 
last  year  paid  £35,000,  he  qualified  the  statement 
by  saying  "it  took  no  account  of  the  investment  ex- 
cept interest  on  loans." 

The  fact  is  that,  of  all  the  City  Corporation's 
unmethodically  scattered  composite  market,  slaugh- 


256        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

ter-house  and  animal-protective  system,  only  three 
undertakings  have  now  a  yearly  balance  on  the  right 
side  of  the  ledger — in  1911,  the  Central  Markets, 
Smithfield,  £45,300;  Leadenhall,  £849;  and  Billings- 
gate, £8,664.  Equally  is  it  a  sweeping  fact  that 
these  balances  do  not  cancel  the  losses  on  the  City's 
other  market  undertakings  and  meet  average  com- 
mercial returns  on  the  investment.  There  is  no 
profit  in  the  London  system  as  a  financial  enter- 
prise. Were  not  the  wholesale  meat  sales  perforce 
centred  at  Smithfield,  and  the  fish  sales  at  Billings- 
gate, with  monopolistic  rents  and  tolls,  the  system 
might  collapse. 

Next,  as  to  Berlin.  Pamphlet  No.  i  says :  "For 
the  year  1910  the  total  receipts  of  the  markets 
amounted  to  about  $838,446,  and  the  total  expendi- 
tures for  administration,  interest  and  sinking  fund 
amounted  to  $763,468,  leaving  a  surplus  for  the 
year  of  $74,978."  No.  2  states:  "On  the  entire 
enterprise,  when  all  charges  have  been  met,  there  is 
a  profit  of  over  $135,000  a  year."  And  No.  3  re- 
peats this  statement.  But  the  official  reports  for 
1909,  not  quoted  in  either  pamphlet,  gave  a  deficit 
on  the  year's  operation  of  the  market  system  of 
4,904  marks!  It  is  true  that  for  1910  the  excess 
of  receipts  over  expenditures  became  295,910  marks 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         257 

(quoted  in  No.  i);  and  for  1911,  485,394  marks. 
How  the  deficit  of  1909  became  a  surplus  in  the  two 
years  following  is  thus  explained  in  a  paragraph 
of  the  official  report  for  1911:  "The  increase  of 
the  receipts  is,  however,  not  the  consequence  of  a 
better  occupation  of  the  market  halls,  but  only  by 
reason  of  the  increase  of  the  rents  of  the  stands 
which  went  into  effect  in  July,  1910.'*  That  is, 
with  sadly  diminishing  social  benefits,  apparent  fi- 
nancial profits  became  possible  to  the  management 
through  a  rack-rent  squeeze. 

Comprehensively,  here  is  the  financial  situation 
of  the  Berlin  market  system  of  two  central  and 
thirteen  district  halls,  according  to  the  official  esti- 
mate for  1912 :  Two  district  halls  closed,  failures 
(a  third  to  be  closed  May  i,  1913)  ;  three  others 
showing  yearly  expenditures  greater  than  receipts; 
four  others  together  showing  the  slight  balance  in 
favor  of  receipts  of  39,136  marks;  two  others,  to- 
gether, a  balance  of  132,466  marks;  the  two  cen- 
tral halls,  612,203  marks.  The  total  receipts  over 
expenditures,  329,208  marks — $80,000.  In  the  four 
years,  1909-1912,  the  average  book  "profits"  would 
be  less  than  $70,000.  But  this  showing  ignores 
the  10,500,000  marks  invested  in  the  system  on 
which  there  are  no  outstanding  loans  and  conse- 


258         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

quently  no  annual  outlay.  Again  comes  the  query, 
ought  not  the  investment  be  earning  an  interest? 
In  private  business,  we  keep  in  mind,  capital  repre- 
senting paid  off  loans  is  expected  to  earn  current 
interest  if  remaining  invested  in  the  undertaking. 
It  is  live  capital,  not  dead.  It  is  property.  The  in- 
terest of  10,500,000  marks  at  3^2  per  cent,  the  rate 
paid  the  Berlin  market  loans,  is  more  than  360,000 
marks — $90,000,  making  the  average  annual  loss 
of  the  system  for  the  four  years  $20,000.  But  it 
is  hardly  to  the  credit — financial  credit — of  the  mar- 
ket system  that  Market  Hall  No.  3,  disused  as  a 
market,  is  rented  at  95,000  marks  a  year  as  a  beer 
concert  hall,  or  that  other  market  halls  are  deriving 
revenues  from  various  tenants  whose  business  has 
little  or  no  relation  to  marketing. 

Finally,  the  central  halls  are  to  be  vacated,  and, 
at  a  cost  estimated  at  millions  of  marks,  a  new  set 
of  buildings  erected — where,  is  uncertain.  One  pro- 
posed site  is  far  eastward,  adjoining  the  city  slaugh- 
ter-houses; another  far  to  the  northwest,  near  a 
railway  station — each  a  long  distance  from  the  pres- 
ent body  of  customers.  What  will  the  new  central 
markets  cost?  What  will  be  the  volume  of  their 
sales?  What  influences  will  contribute  to  their 
success  or  failure?  A  problem  there.  In  calculat- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         259 

ing  for  the  future,  it  is  to  be  kept  in  mind  that  the 
present  system  has  been  bolstered  up  through  sup- 
pression of  non-paying  adjuncts  as  well  as  of  rivals 
— no  "square,"  no  open  markets,  no  competing 
pushcarts.  But  this  policy  is  now  to  be  abandoned. 
With  opportunity  to  sell  in  the  open,  how  many 
market  retailers  will  pay  the  present  high  rents  for 
stalls? 

On  the  whole,  the  truth  is  that  the  Berlin  market 
system  failed  as  a  going  concern  in  1909,  when  it 
showed  a  deficit,  but  was  given  a  new  lease  of  life 
through  the  monopolistic  municipality  increasing  the 
tax  on  its  helpless  market  tenants  while  systematic- 
ally depriving  several  of  its  legitimate  municipal 
rivals — pushcarts  and  open-air  markets — of  exist- 
ence. The  Berlin  system  offers  to  New  York  no 
example  to  copy,  either  as  a  social  or  a  financial 
institution. 

We  now  turn  to  Paris.  Pamphlet  No.  i,  refer- 
ring to  the  "large  profit  that  the  markets  annually 
yield  the  city"  quotes  "one  authority" — name  not 
given — as  stating  that  in  1906  it  was  $1,498,241. 
No.  2  says :  "Paris,  with  a  population  of  3,000,000, 
has  spent  over  $10,000,000  on  its  Halles  Centrales 
and  thirty  district  markets,  but  the  average  yearly 


a6o        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

income  is  $2,100,000,  of  which  about  half  is  profit." 
No.  3  makes  the  annual  profit  "about  $1,000,000." 
The  $2,100,000  "yearly  income"  (1911)  was  not 
derived  only  from  the  Central  Halls  and  the  (fifty- 
five,  not  thirty)  district  markets  (alleged  cost  "over 
$10,000,000"),  but  was  the  gross  receipts  of  the 
entire  system  under  the  market  bureau  of  Paris, 
whose  various  plants  cost  more  than  $30,000,000. 
These  plants  are:  The  Central  Halls,  the  cost  of 
which  was  $13,000,000  ("Les  Halles  Centrales  de 
Paris,"  Jules  Vigneau;  "Les  Halles  et  Marches  Ali- 
mentaires  de  Paris,"  Robert  Facque) — gross  rev- 
enues in  1911  less  than  $800,000;  twenty  district 
market-houses,  present  valuation  more  than  $3,000,- 
ooo  (16,180,000  francs) ;  the  municipal  cattle  mar- 
ket of  La  Villette,  opened  in  1867,  ground,  build- 
ings, and  railway  sidings,  $5,000,000  (De  Lover- 
do) ;  La  Villette  slaughter-houses,  at  the  building  of 
which  five  municipal  slaughter-houses  which  had 
cost  $4,000,000  were  vacated,  and  for  the  recon- 
struction of  which  $8,000,000  has  been  recently 
asked ;  the  Vaugirard  slaughter-house,  cost  $3,000,- 
ooo  (Report,  fimile  Massard,  to  the  Municipal 
Council)  ;  and  the  wine  warehouses  at  St.  Bernard 
and  Bercy,  the  cost  of  the  latter  $5,000,000 
("La  Grande  Encyclopedic" ) .  But,  besides  all  these 


MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE         261 

plants,  the  streets  of  Paris  contributed  $400,000  of 
the  $2,100,000  receipts  of  1911 — $200,000  being 
from  the  stationing  and  guardianship  of  market- 
men's  teams  in  the  streets,  $100,000  fees  from  the 
thirty-five  open-air  markets,  and  $100,000  fees  from 
the  Central  Market  "Square"  ("Rapport  Annuel  de 
1911  sur  les  Services  Municipaux  de  1'Approvi- 
sionnement  de  Paris,"  page  195). 

To  ascertain  the  net  income  of  the  total  invest- 
ment in  the  system,  10,581,889  francs  being  the 
gross  revenues  of  1911  (the  amount  quoted  in 
pamphlet  No.  2),  would  be  a  complicated  task. 
Would  it  not  involve  deducting  a  part  of  the 
$400,000  coming,  not  through  the  outlay  of  the 
market  department  for  plant,  but  from  costs  de- 
frayed by  the  street  department?  Then,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  determine  which  of  the  numerous 
market  officials,  some  being  from  the  Prefecture  of 
Police  and  others  from  the  Prefecture  of  the  Seine, 
are  paid  from  the  market  revenues  and  which  from 
the  city  funds,  and  also  what  current  expenditures 
are  charged  up  to  the  market  and  what  to  other 
bureaus.  On  this  point,  Councillor  Maurice  Quen- 
tin  noted  ("Rapport  sur  le  Budget,"  1906)  the  fol- 
lowing expenses  not  classified  with  the  market  out- 
lay: Central  administration,  cleaning  markets  and 


262        MARKETS   FOR  THE    PEOPLE 

their  streets,  carting  away  refuse,  and  pay  of  the 
market  architect's  staff,  the  special  market  police, 
the  inspectors,  the  veterinarians,  and  the  inspectors 
and  laborers  of  the  weights  and  measures  service. 
For  years  M.  Quentin  has  asked  in  vain  for  an  ap- 
propriation of  the  $4,000,000  necessary  to  complete 
the  Central  Halls,  which  have  stood  unfinished  for 
a  generation.  Three  and  a  half  per  cent  interest 
on  the  $30,000,000  invested  in  the  various  plants 
would  alone  come  near  canceling  the  alleged  prof- 
it of  our  New  York  pamphleteers.  The  Paris  mar- 
ket reports  giving  only  receipts,  it  would  require 
an  accountant  going  from  bureau  to  bureau  looking 
up  the  financial  history  of  the  market  system  to 
arrive  at  the  probabilities  as  to  whether  any  part 
of  it  has  ever  "paid."  The  system  has  enormous 
purely  fiscal  receipts,  not  included  in  the  $2,100,000 
noted  as  the  market  bureau  collections ;  La  Villette 
in  1911  took  in  $2,100,000  octroi  duties  and  $500,- 
ooo  slaughter-house  head  tax.  But  for  the  purpose 
of  this  review  it  is  enough  to  note  the  capital  errors 
as  to  the  Paris  markets  of  the  New  York  pam- 
phlets in  question,  which  destroy  the  arguments  of 
their  authors. 

As  to  city  market  systems  in  the  United  States 
"paying,"  pamphlet  No.  i  says :  "Reports  show  that 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         263 

Boston,  for  instance,  nets  a  profit  of  $60,000  a  year; 
Baltimore,  $50,000  a  year,  and  New  Orleans  $79,- 
ooo  a  year  on  their  markets."  No.  2  gives :  "Bos- 
ton has  a  profit  on  its  markets  of  $60,000,  Balti- 
more, $50,000;  New  Orleans,  $79,000;  Buffalo, 
$44,000;  Cleveland  (Ohio),  $27,507;  Washington, 
(D.  C),  $7,000;  Nashville  (Tenn.),  $8,200;  In- 
dianapolis, $17,220;  Rochester  (N.  Y.),  $4,721; 
and  St.  Paul  (Minn.),  $4,085." 

The  Boston  market  department  had  on  operation 
a  net  revenue  in  1912  of  more  than  $111,000,  the 
total  receipts  being  $131,447;  department  expendi- 
tures, $20,181.  In  fixing  rentals  for  new  leases  of 
ten  years,  the  Board  of  Assessors  rated  Quincy 
Market,  land  and  buildings,  at  $1,800,000;  the  mar- 
ket in  the  ground  floor  and  basement  of  Faneuil 
Hall,  not  included  in  this  rating,  brought  in  $25,200 
of  the  total  receipts.  If  the  total  investment  in  the 
markets  is  $2,000,000  and  a  four  per  cent  interest, 
$80,000,  be  deducted  from  the  operating  revenue, 
the  result  is  apparently  a  net  income  of  $31,000. 
What  differences  might  be  arrived  at  by  an  auditor 
calculating  according  to  standard  municipal  ac- 
counting methods,  which  require  recognition  of  ex- 
penditures not  commonly  comprised  in  bureau  re- 
ports, is  a  question.  In  establishing  wholesale  mar- 


264        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

kets  in  New  York,  certainly  the  interest  on  invest- 
ment must  be  included  in  any  estimate,  and  to  ig- 
nore it  in  quoting  Boston's  alleged  "profits"  as  an 
example  would  be  grossly  misleading. 

For  Baltimore,  its  Deputy  Comptroller  writes: 
"I  cannot  understand  where  any  one  could  get  au- 
thority for  saying  the  city  of  Baltimore  derived  an- 
nually profits  of  $50,000  from  its  municipal  mar- 
kets. "  In  1912,  his  report  shows,  expenditures  ex- 
ceeded receipts  by  $24,899.  He  adds :  "The  city 
derives  no  profits  in  maintaining  its  eleven  markets." 
In  1911,  for  the  first  time,  a  tabular  statement  con- 
taining historical  and  financial  data  of  the  Baltimore 
market  system  for  the  period  1857-1911,  was  issued 
by  the  City  Comptroller.  For  1912,  a  similar  state- 
ment gives:  Total  debits,  $2,513,628;  credits,  $3,- 
281,959.  But  in  a  foot-note  it  is  explained  that  the 
accounting  does  not  include  the  expenses  of  ad- 
ministration or  of  cleaning  and  lighting  the  mar- 
kets! In  1912  cleaning  cost  $37,543;  lighting, 
$7,495.  These  expenses  alone  would  at  this  rate 
in  twenty  years  wipe  out  the  $768,331  to  the  credit 
of  the  markets  in  the  fifty-four  years.  Nor  does 
the  statement  recognize  either  depreciation  or  in- 
terest on  the  investment  of  $1,048,590,  as  appraised 
in  1911.  A  writer  in  the  New  York  "Municipal 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         265 

Journal."  December  5,  1912,  in  the  course  of  a  de- 
tailed review  of  the  Baltimore  system,  reaches  the 
conclusion  that,  deducting  interest  on  the  total  cost 
of  plant,  $1,313,941,  the  net  revenue  for  1910  and 
1911  was  slightly  over  one  per  cent.  But  he  says 
he  omits  cost  of  administration.  And  in  1912  this 
little  net  revenue,  with  self -obliterating  qualifica- 
tions, became  a  considerable  positive  deficit.  All  the 
facts  flatly  contradict  the  claimants  of  $50,000  prof- 
its for  Baltimore's  markets. 

From  New  Orleans  the  Deputy  Commissioner  of 
Public  Finance  writes  of  the  alleged  $79,000  profits : 
"The  figures  you  mention  as  the  annual  profits  are 
unofficial,  as  the  markets  are  not  run  for  the  basis 
of  any  profit." 

For  Buffalo,  the  Markets  Superintendent  says 
"the  revenues"  from  its  four  markets  for  1912  were 
$62,000  and  expenditures  $18,000,  which  would 
give  some  recognition  to  No.  2's  profit  of  $44,000. 
But  he  also  writes,  April  8,  1913,  that  rebuilding  is 
now  going  on  at  an  expense  of  $150,000,  to  which 
another  $50,000  may  be  added  to  complete  the 
work.  He  gives  this  opinion :  "If  the  city  of  Buf- 
falo were  at  this  time  to  enter  upon  an  enterprise 
for  the  establishment  of  markets  for  revenue  I 
would  not  be  in  favor  of  same  as  a  revenue  pro- 


266         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

ducer,  for  I  think  an  even  break  would  be  the  best 
the  city  could  expect."  To  buy  land  and  build  the 
markets,  he  believes  would  cost  $700,000  to  $800,- 
ooo. 

Cleveland's  reports,  so  far  as  made  public,  are  for 
the  year's  operations,  without  accounting  for  inter- 
est or  the  other  requirements  of  a  systematic  audit- 
ing system. 

Washington:  Instead  of  $7,000  profit,  the  Dis- 
trict system  has  yielded  during  the  last  ten  years  a 
net  annual  revenue  on  operation  of  $3,600,  being 
about  one  and  one-half  per  cent  interest  on  the  in- 
ventory value  of  the  three  market-houses,  $228,000. 
At  four  per  cent  on  capital  the  system  is  losing 
$6,000  a  year. 

Nashville:  Receipts  for  1912,  $13,657;  expendi- 
tures, $3,700;  balance,  $9,957.  Cost  of  market- 
house,  $73,000.  Light  supplied  by  city  electric 
works  free.  Interest  and  lighting  would  bring  the 
balance  down  to  $6,000  or  less.  But  net  revenue 
cannot  be  calculated  without  better  data. 

Indianapolis :  One  would  hardly  expect  the  mar- 
kets of  this  city  among  the  models  for  revenue  or 
for  any  other  reason  until  they  have  had  time  to 
outlive  their  peculiar  fame,  gained  in  years  of  mis- 
management. 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         267 

Rochester:  Instead  of  the  alleged  $4,721  profits, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Public  Market  Commission  re- 
ports: "Until  last  year  the  receipts  of  the  market 
have  not  been  sufficient  to  pay  the  maintenance,  in- 
terest and  sinking  fund,  and  it  has  been  necessary 
to  include  in  the  tax  levy  the  sum  of  $6,000  per 
year. to  provide  for  the  deficiency." 

St.  Paul:  From  the  Comptroller's  office:  "I 
cannot  verify  the  figures  of  $4,085  profits  of  the 
city  market  for  the  preceding  year."  Receipts  for 

1912,  $7,459;  expenditures,  $5,143;  net>  for  year> 
$2,315.  "The  disbursements  consist  entirely  of 
operating  expenses  and  do  not  take  into  considera- 
tion the  interest  on  the  original  investment,  depre- 
ciation, or  pro  rata  expense  of  city  administration." 
The  present  estimated  value  of  the  market  property 
is  given  as  $150,000.  That,  alone,  at  four  per  cent, 
would  bring  the  deficit  on  the  market  for  1912  to 
$3,685. 

From  the  foregoing  analyses  it  is  seen  that  in 
hardly  one  example  have  the  pamphlets  issued  by 
the  Chairman  and  a  member  of  the  New  York 
Terminal  Market  Commission  given  correct  statis- 
tics. In  most  cases  the  errors  have  been  palpable, 
enormous — inexcusable,  considering  that  alleged 
profits  are  being  employed  to  persuade  New  York- 


268        MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

ers  that  to  reduce  the  cost  of  provisions  their  first 
need  is  a  system  of  wholesale  markets — "one  to  each 
borough."  What  that  system  might  cost  may  be 
inferred  from  the  estimate  for  the  West  Washing- 
ton-Gansevoort  "terminal  market,"  the  model  for 
which  was  recently  shown  at  the  Women's  Exhi- 
bition in  the  Grand  Central  Palace.  That  cost,  as 
given  in  a  hand-out  leaflet,  was  "from  $10,000,000 
to  $12,000,000"!  For  the  same  market,  a  local 
committee's  estimate,  not  including  cost  of  a  neces- 
sary railroad  structure,  is  $8,610,832. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  any  adequate  appreciation 
of  the  task  of  rehabilitating  New  York's  market 
system  has  yet  been  shown,  in  their  speeches  or 
their  writings,  by  those  of  its  officials  who  for  more 
than  a  year  have  given  nothing  better,  in  the  way 
of  information  or  proposition,  than  the  matter  con- 
tained in  the  above-mentioned  pamphlets.  Can 
they  redeem  their  errors? 


XV.     NEW  YORK   MARKET   PROBLEMS- 
OFFICIAL  PROMISE  vs.   PER- 
FORMANCE. 

PETER  COOPER  was  President  of  the  New  York 
Citizens'  Association  which  in  1867  investigated  the 
city's  public  market  system.  Here  is  a  passage  in 
the  association's  report  to  Controller  Connolly: 

"A  careful  and  minute  inquiry,  made  in  1863  into 
the  comparative  cost  of  articles  bought  in  Wash- 
ington and  Fulton  markets  and  of  the  same  articles 
bought  uptown  from  grocers  and  butchers,  showed 
an  average  of  30  per  cent  in  favor  of  downtown, 
and  the  year's  supply  of  these  articles  cost  uptown 
people  $25,000,000  more  than  they  would  have  had 
to  pay  if  the  markets  were  so  located  as  to  bring 
consumer  and  producer  together  and  dispense  with 
middlemen  and  speculators.  .  .  .  This  $25,- 
000,000  was  a  direct  tax  on  the  consumer." 

Now,  there  was  posed  a  great  problem  for  the 
city,  half  a  century  ago :  "To  bring  consumer 
and  producer  together."  What  have  the  city's  re- 
sponsible representatives  in  the  premises  done  since 
to  solve  that  problem?  The  privately  managed 

agencies  of  the  foodstuffs  trade  have  extended  their 

269 


270        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

commercial  jurisdiction;  they  have  adopted  new 
methods  with  the  increase  of  population  and  the 
general  improvements  of  modern  times.  The  rail- 
roads and  the  steamship  lines  have  encouraged  the 
carrying  of  country  produce  as  fast  freight.  The 
refrigerator  car  lines  have  given  life  to  vast  new 
areas  of  production  of  fruit  and  vegetables,  some 
of  them  thousands  of  miles  from  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board. The  cold  storage  system  has  arisen — 
granted  with  abuses  as  well  as  uses.  The  chain 
store  and  the  private  provision  market  are  doing 
work  that  might  have  been  in  part  done  through 
municipal  action.  Yet,  with  this  civic  problem  for- 
ever confronting  them,  our  chief  authorities — when 
faithful  servants  overwhelmed  with  pressing  re- 
forms in  administration,  when  mere  politicians  ab- 
sorbed in  personal  and  partisan  gain — have  not  only 
failed  to  establish  means  of  bringing  consumer  and 
producer  together,  but  have  allowed  the  fairly  ef- 
fective public  market  system  of  fifty  years  ago 
to  die. 

Official  investigations  for  the  purpose  of  solving 
the  market  question  as  it  exists  for  New  York  have 
of  recent  years  been  superficial,  the  recommenda- 
tions of  commissions  have  been  divergent,  the  find- 
ings as  to  the  facts  relative  to  other  cities  have  in 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE        271 

conspicuous  cases  been  grossly  in  error,  the  schemes 
for  new  market  systems  have  been  startling  in  their 
probable  cost,  and,  invariably,  the  "reforms"  sug- 
gested have  been  destructive  of  the  rights  of  the 
consumer  to  be  served  in  the  streets.  Here  is  a 
resume  of  various  official  recommendations : 

1.  More  than  fifteen  years  ago,  during  Mayor 
Strong's      administration,      Street     Commissioner 
George  E.  Waring  energetically  advocated  munici- 
pal markets  as  a  substitute  for  pushcart  peddling. 
Nothing  done. 

2.  In     1903,     Secretary    Reynolds'    report    to 
Mayor  Low    (anti-Tammany)    recommended   "the 
creation  of  three  or  four  pushcart  markets  by  the 
city,  and  the  requirement,  upon  the  establishment 
of  these  markets,  that  all  pushcarts  be  relegated  to 
them."     By  this  report,  market  sites  were  to  be 
taken  by  condemnation,  each  occupying  a  block  or 
a  half -block,  up  town  or  down  town.     The  appro- 
priations for  this  measure,  involving  obviously  some 
millions,   never   came.      Pushcart   foodstuffs   were 
found  by  the  committee  to  be  good  and  cheap. 

3.  In  1906  this  proposal  of  the  Low  adminis- 
tration was  strongly  opposed  by  the  Commission  of 
Mayor  McClellan  (Tammany).    The  counter  opin- 
ion was :    "We  see  no  reason  why  the  City  of  New 


272        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

York  should  go  into  the  business  of  providing  shop 
space  for  dealers  in  any  class  of  supplies,  at  a  large 
annual  loss,  nor  why  taxpayers  should  be  called 
upon  to  bear  such  a  burden."  Among  its  findings, 
this  Commission  reported :  "That  public  markets 
will  not  solve  the  pushcart  problem,  cannot  be  self- 
supporting,  and  would  be  an  unwarranted  burden 
to  the  taxpayers/'  "We  are  clearly  of  opinion  that 
the  pushcart  problem  cannot  be  solved  by  the  crea- 
tion of  municipal  markets."  This  Commission  rec- 
ommended a  complicated  plan  of  pushcart  regula- 
tion, involving  "restricted"  and  "unrestricted"  dis- 
tricts of  the  city,  a  limited  number  of  stationary 
peddlers'  positions,  minimum  license  fees  of  $10 
for  carts,  abolition  of  personal  badges,  exclusion 
of  horse  and  wagon  peddling  from  certain  districts 
— a  very  elaborate  scheme,  not  one  feature  of  which 
is  operative  today.  Again  pushcart  goods  were  de- 
clared wholesome  and  cheap.  Moreover,  "The  ped- 
dler must  be  free  to  travel  from  place  to  place." 

4.  An  Aldermanic  Special  Committee  on  Push- 
carts and  Markets,  appointed  July  9,  1912,  reported 
May  8,  1913,  on  pushcarts  only.  Its  recommenda- 
tions were  to  convert  the  pushcart  peddlers  to 
permanent  standholders  in  sheltered  markets  under 
the  river  bridges  and  in  small  parks  and  certain 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE        273 

open  public  spaces.  The  Committee  found :  "That 
the  quality  of  food  and  merchandise  sold  from  these 
pushcarts  is  in  the  main  of  as  good  a  quality  as  can 
be  bought  anywhere  else  in  the  city,  and  much 
cheaper." 

5.  A  Mayor's   Commission  on   Pushcarts,   ap- 
pointed December   18,    1912,   reported   March  26, 
1913,    its  report  being  transmitted  to  the   Board 
of  Aldermen  April  18.     Its  recommendations  were 
the  same  as  the  aldermanic  committee's  turned  out 
to  be,  six  weeks  later,  the  establishment  of  "per- 
manent shelter  markets."     Among  the  findings  of 
this  Commission  were :     "The  legal  status  of  the 
pushcart  operator  is  that  of  a  commercial  outcast." 
"It  has  been  found  that  the  foodstuffs  sold  by  the 
peddlers  is  nearly  uniformly  wholesome."     "Com- 
modities are  by  means  of  them  distributed  at  lower 
prices  than  they  could  be  purchased  for  elsewhere." 
"But  it  is  necessary  to  take  them  off  the  streets!" 

6.  To  another  Commission,  one  on  markets,  ap- 
pointed by  the  present  Mayor,  of  which  the  Presi- 
dent of  The  Bronx  is  chairman,  a  joint  committee 
representing  organizations  interested  in  the  West 
Washington-Gansevoort  market  reported  May  20, 
1912,  in  favor  of  a  new  wholesale  market  which 
should  take  up  several  blocks  adjoining  the  Ganse- 


274        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

voort  site,  the  West  Washington  to  be  given  over 
to  dock  purposes.  A  striking  feature  of  this  re- 
port is  the  estimate  that  the  land  and  buildings  of 
the  new  market  would  cost  $8,610,832,  not  includ- 
ing the  railroad  structure  essential  to  the  service  of 
its  supplies. 

7.  A  Member  of  the  Advisory  Board  of  the 
New  York  Terminal  Market  Commission,  showing 
a  model  of  the  proposed  Gansevoort  market  at  the 
Woman's  Industrial  Exhibition  at  the  Grand  Cen- 
tral Palace,  March,  1913,  estimated  its  minimum 
cost  at  from  ten  to  twelve  million  dollars.  One  of 
the  necessary  methods  of  making  such  a  market 
"pay"  is  stated  (page  32)  in  this  member's  "A 
Terminal  Market  System":  "The  municipality 
should  select  central  positions  for  its  markets,  with 
rail  and  river  access.  It  should  have  effective  con- 
trol not  only  over  the  markets  but  the  adjacent 
streets,  wharves,  and  railroad  sidings,  so  as  to  ob- 
viate evasion  of  the  market  tolls."  That  is,  the  pres- 
ent boat  and  railroad  terminals  receiving  foodstuffs 
and  the  vast  private  storage  warehouses  now  doing 
business  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Gansevoort  market 
are  to  be  "controlled"  by  the  market  authority — 
somehow.  Would  they  be  subject  to  market  tolls, 
or  would  they  be  wholly  suppressed?  Speaking  of 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         275 

the  peddlers'  traffic  in  the  streets  adjacent  to  the 
Berlin  wholesale  market,  the  same  writer  says 
(page  19),  that  it  "was  prohibited  and  strictly  lim- 
ited elsewhere.  This  measure,  in  fact,  is  deemed 
essential  in  every  city  where  municipal  markets  are 
conducted  successfully !" 

8.  The  President  of  The  Bronx  ("Times," 
March  28,  1913),  thus  describes  his  course  in  ad- 
vancing his  wholesale  market  theories:  "After 
projecting  the  wholesale  terminal  markets  I  asked 
that  a  committee  of  the  Board  of  Estimate  and  Ap- 
portionment be  appointed  to  consider  the  plans  and 
report  to  the  board."  Was  it  also  after  forming  his 
vast  project — the  cost  of  which  is  to  be  reckoned  by 
the  tens  of  millions — that  he  ascertained,  in  its  sup- 
port, in  Europe  and  America,  his  alluring  but  il- 
lusory proofs  that  municipal  markets  "pay"  ?  "Be- 
ware," says  a  French  proverb,  "of  looking  for  what 
you  are  seeking;  you  may  find  it!"  We  have  seen 
this  official's  errors  as  a  reporter  of  data — due 
largely,  perhaps,  to  haste — in  confusing  what  seems, 
in  written  or  spoken  report  of  a  passing  year,  with 
what  is,  in  permanent  and  foundation  fact.  What 
as  a  consequence  may  be  the  expectation  of  his 
projects? — now  involving,  by  his  own  announce- 
ments, a  "wholesale  distributing  market  for  every 


276        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

borough,  perhaps  two  for  Manhattan"  ("Munici- 
pal Market  Policy,"  May  i,  1912), — or,  later,  "the 
building  of  wholesale  markets  at  the  railroad  ter- 
minals/' with  probably  retail  annexes  ("Terminal 
Markets  in  the  United  States,"  January,  1913), 
the  system  to  be  equipped  with  storage  facilities, 
motor  trucks  to  carry  surplus  supplies  from  mar- 
ket to  market,  and  a  bureau  for  newspaper  adver- 
tising or  issuing  a  daily  bulletin.  An  "industrial" 
railway  is  to  be  constructed  in  The  Bronx  and  a 
dock  railway  on  the  West  Side,  and  possibly  Walla- 
bout  Creek  is  to  be  dredged  to  accommodate  large 
vessels !  All  this  in  how  many  years  ?  This  official 
has  been  more  than  a  year  in  getting  up  his  re- 
port— often  promised,  not  yet  issued. 

9.  Directly  opposed  to  the  Manhattan  Terminal 
project  of  The  Bronx  President  stands  a  paragraph 
in  the  findings  of  the  Committee  on  Markets,  Prices 
and  Costs  of  the  New  York  State  Food  Investigat- 
ing Commission,  which  reads :  "That  the  scattered 
locations  of  transportation  terminals  and  the  area 
and  configuration  of  the  city  render  a  central  whole- 
sale market  impracticable,  a  needless  expense,  and  a 
permanent  and  useless  addition  to  the  cost  of  food 
distribution."  (Report,  August  i,  1912,  page  33.) 
"The  co-operation  of  the  railroads  which  do  not  get 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         277 

a  direct  entrance  to  this  location  might  be  difficult 
to  secure,  and  the  plan  is  subject  to  the  funda- 
mental objection  that  delivery  in  car  lots  should 
be  made  at  the  points  nearest  the  consumer."  This 
committee  reported  as  one  of  its  ascertained  facts : 
"Increase  to  cost  by  the  use  of  the  pushcart  system 
is  lower  than  in  any  other  type  of  food-distributing 
agency."  But,  instead  of  following  up  the  line  of 
cheap  operation  suggested  by  this  fact,  which  would 
have  led  to  liberty  for  the  pushcart  trade  and  the 
establishment  of  open-air  markets,  the  committee's 
recommendation  was :  "We  urge  the  reduction  of 
cost  by  merging  the  wholesale  and  retail  business, 
either  through  larger  retail  units,  department  stores 
or  chain  stores"  (page  21).  The  committee  believed 
"that  not  more  than  200  such  markets,  perhaps 
less,  would  perform  the  function  of  food  distribu- 
tion in  Greater  New  York  in  the  most  economical 
and  satisfactory  manner."  Its  estimate  called  for 
a  total  investment  of  $40,000,000  for  the  200  mar- 
kets! 

10.  A  supplementary  report  by  one  of  the  three 
members  of  this  committee,  who  believed  "the  situ- 
ation demanded  more  definite  and  radical  treat- 
ment," after  reciting  a  list  of  wastes  and  burdens 
in  the  present  methods  of  food  supply  to  New  York 


278        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

consumers,  contained  his  own  project:  "The 
remedy  for  this  chaotic,  uneconomic,  extravagant 
and  wasteful  condition  of  distributing  foodstuffs 
can  be  most  effectively  brought  about  by  the  estab- 
lishment throughout  the  city  of  a  series  of  retail 
markets,  in  each  of  which  all  foodstuffs  would  be 
carried,  and  in  which  goods  and  prices  would  be  uni- 
form/' .  .  .  "The  City  of  New  York  or  the 
State  should  provide  the  sites  and  buildings  for 
those  markets  by  invoking,  when  necessary,  their 
power  of  eminent  domain."  "The  operating  com- 
pany should  be  under  the  strict  supervision  of  a 
State  Commission  of  Markets  and  Marketing,  with 
power  to  enforce  all  necessary  regulations  in  re- 
lation to  transportation,  terminal  facilities,  sanita- 
tion, quality  and  grades  and  prices." 

Two  radically  different  schemes,  each  requiring 
millions  of  dollars — tens  of  millions? — from  one 
committee !  However,  that  committee's  impractica- 
bilities have  shrouded  it  in  oblivion — except  that 
by  whiles  some  one  remembers  the  blunders  of  its 
statistics.  It  estimated  that  the  fruit  and  vegetables 
other  than  potatoes  consumed  annually  in  Greater 
New  York  amounted  in  value  to  five  million  dol- 
lars, whereas  evidently  the  value  must  be  more  than 
fifty  millions,  persisting  in  the  error  in  different 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE        279 

parts  of  the  report.  It  also  calculated  on  one  page 
that  the  annual  food  supply  of  Greater  New  York 
costs  in  the  consumers'  kitchen  five  hundred  mil- 
lions or  over,  while  on  another  page  it  made  only 
"the  chief  articles  of  consumption"  nearly  six  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions.  A  letter  writer  to  the 
press,  after  saying  that  the  committee  acknowledges 
the  first  error,  estimates  that  it  should  have  found 
that,  the  cost  of  the  annual  food  supply  of  Greater 
New  York  at  the  terminals  being  $350,000,000,  in 
the  kitchens  of  the  consumers  it  is  $700,000,000 — 
a  square  block  addition  of  100  per  cent. 

About  the  only  point  in  practice  on  which  all 
these  ten  committees  and  commissions  and  special 
investigators  have  agreed  is  the  expenditure  of 
more  city  money  for  plant  and  the  creation  of  more 
city  offices  for  operating  or  supervising  bureaus. 

The  framer  of  new  public  projects  in  which  gov- 
ernment is  to  be  trader,  manufacturer,  or  operator 
ever  assumes  that  city,  State,  or  national  admin- 
istration is  on  the  eve  of  a  sweeping  and  lasting  re- 
form. The  chastening  thought  and  experience  of 
a  half  century  relative  to  the  office-holder's  ineffi- 
cient part  in  food  selling,  for  example,  gives  him 
no  pause.  Yet  here  are  some  of  the  bits  of  com- 
ment and  advice  falling  under  my  observation  while 


280        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

looking  up  this  subject :  Approving  Peter  Cooper's 
recommendations  for  new  markets,  Samuel  J.  Til- 
den  said :  "I  admit  the  general  unfitness  of  the 
State  to  manage  any  kind  of  business."  On  the 
same  point,  Controller  A.  C.  Flagg,  writing  in  1854, 
referred  to  "the  bungling  hand  of  government/' 
T.  Scanlon,  Secretary  Tariff  Reform  Committee, 
writes :  "The  Lodge  Report  is  discredited  by  the 
fact  of  the  majority  of  the  committee  being  com- 
posed of  high-tariff  partisans/'  Frederic  J.  Has- 
kin,  in  his  "Cost  of  Living",  remarks,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course :  "It  is  only  when  investigators  start 
out  to  prove  a  theory,  rather  than  to  ascertain  the 
facts,  that  wide  divergences  of  opinion  become  evi- 
dent." Henry  R.  Towne,  President  of  the  Mer- 
chants' Association,  says:  "New  York  lags  be- 
hind every  other  great  modern  city  of  the  world  in 
cohesiveness,  progressiveness,  and  municipal  intelli- 
gence." Fritz  Reichmann,  State  Superintendent  of 
Weights  and  Measures,  wrote  three  years  ago: 
"Russia,  which  we  consider  a  barbarous  country, 
is  so  much  better  governed  than  New  York  State  in 
respect  to  its  weights  and  measures  as  to  make  us 
blush."  In  October,  1911,  Dr.  Alexis  Ilyin,  an  of- 
ficial of  St.  Petersburg,  denouncing  the  unsanitary 
conditions  in  New  York  bakeries,  said :  "I  wonder 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         281 

how  New  Yorkers  can  stand  eating  bread  made  in 
these  caverns  of  darkness  and  unwholesomeness." 
Bearing  on  the  question  of  licensing  peddlers  and 
standkeepers,  New  Yorkers  have  read  in  the  news- 
papers spicy  accounts  of  fights  between  the  "ins" 
and  "outs"  in  "fish-stand  politics,"  and  of  charges 
of  grafting  on  pushcart  men  by  political  "organiza- 
tion representatives." 

Relative  to  the  investment  of  millions  in  munici- 
pal markets — "distributive"  or  wholesale,  or  com- 
pound wholesale  and  retail — experience  speaks  in 
the  views  of  representatives  of  two  classes  of  New 
Yorkers,  the  one  officeholders  and  the  other  trans- 
portation officials. 

Officeholders  directed  my  attention  to  these 
points:  A  serious  drawback  in  every  one  of  New 
York's  municipal  branches  is  obtaining  the  annual 
appropriations  essential  to  its  development  and  its 
thorough  and  economical  service.  In  the  various 
departments,  the  loudest  noise  obtains  the  fullest 
purse.  "Foolish  waste  and  foolish  frugality"  was 
our  late  Commissioner  of  Accounts'  verdict  of  the 
city's  financial  management.  The  officials  at  pres- 
ent engaged  with  the  supervising,  the  licensing,  the 
food  inspecting,  the  policing  of  the  markets  and 
street  vending  all  have  one  story  either  of  insurfi- 


282        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

ciency  or  of  superfluity  of  working  force,  or  of  in- 
adequacy of  financial  means,  or  of  uncertainty  of 
the  law  or  jurisdiction,  or  of  working  at  cross  .pur- 
poses or  of  lack  of  co-ordination.  Even  the  office 
accommodations  of  officials  have  long  been  anti- 
quated and  inconvenient.  In  choosing  market  sites 
and  creating  new  markets,  some  of  these  men  ask, 
whose  influence  would  predominate,  that  of  real 
estate  dealers  or  that  of  the  localities  standing  most 
in  need  of  the  markets,  which  now  are  to  have  re- 
tail annexes, — that  of  men  best  qualified  to  lay  out 
a  market  adapted  to  metropolitan  needs  or  that  of 
politician  contractors  with  elaborate  and  expensive 
plans  of  municipal  monuments?  In  the  shifting  of 
New  York's  population  due  to  new  means  of  tran- 
sit, who  can  foresee  whether  or  not  in  a  few  years 
a  market  at  present  located  in  a  crowded  district 
might  not  be  partly  abandoned  ?  And,  given  official 
recognition  of  the  necessity  of  new  wholesale  bor- 
ough markets,  how  many  years  may  elapse  before 
sites  are  chosen  and  houses  built?  There  has  been 
urgent  necessity  for  a  new  court  building  for  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  The  Hall  of  Records 
came  after  being  needed  a  longer  period.  Once 
built,  how  to  be  cared  for?  The  Assistant  Com- 
missioner of  Public  Works  stated  last  year  he  did 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE        283 

not  find  it  practical  to  have  some  of  the  present 
shabby  market  buildings  repaired.  The  representa- 
tives of  the  dealers  in  one  public  market  have  testi- 
fied that  the  conditions  under  which  they  do  busi- 
ness are  deplorable.  A  walk  around  West  Wash- 
ington Market  today  will  be  instructive,  in  its 
dilapidated  state,  as  to  the  possibilities  of  upkeep 
for  new  markets ;  only  after  a  lapse  of  seven  months 
after  a  bad  fire  was  work  at  the  necessary  repairs 
begun  in  May.  Fulton  Market  has  a  leaky  roof; 
has  no  city  refrigerating  plant;  for  two  years  after 
it  had  a  damaging  fire  in  1910  no  permanent  re- 
pairs were  made.  Last  year  Washington  Market 
got  the  first  coat  of  paint  since  1882;  removal  of 
its  outside  stands,  stallholders  say,  has  made  it  in- 
sufferably cold  in  winter.  The  Eighth  Ward  Mar- 
ket, Brooklyn,  has  remained  a  costly  unoccupied 
site  only,  not  a  market,  for  years. 

Transportation  men  ask  what  the  promoters  of 
municipal  wholesale  markets  intend  to  do  with  re- 
gard to  the  terminal  and  wholesale  methods  de- 
veloped independently  of  municipal  ownership  or 
control.  What  is  to  be  done  with  the  scores  of  large 
receiving  houses  of  the  Western  meat  packing  com- 
panies, the  various  costly  miscellaneous  storage 
plants,  markets  of  themselves,  the  extensive  whole- 


284        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

sale  downtown  quarter  for  butter,  cheese  and  eggs, 
etc.  ?  In  the  course  of  time,  the  steamship  and 
railroad  terminals  have  established  what  are  in 
part  markets,  in  part  freight  depots  on  piers  and 
in  railroad  yards — the  market  features  including 
wholesale  auctioning,  accommodations  for  commis- 
sion men,  facilities  for  discharging  and  distributing 
produce.  Dealers  are  in  the  habit  of  going  to  cer- 
tain of  these  points  for  specialties  and  the  particular 
output  of  various  parts  of  the  country.  Are  offi- 
cial attempts  to  be  made  to  supplant  these  enormous 
undertakings?  The  Long  Island  Railroad  Com- 
pany has  a  site  which  it  plans  to  have  utilized  as  a 
market.  How  could  the  city  prevent  or  control  its 
operation?  What  would  be  the  result  of  its  com- 
petition with  the  proposed  borough  wholesale  mar- 
kets? Grave  questions,  these,  for  promoters  of 
ten-million-dollar  municipal  schemes.  Today  there 
is  rivalry  between  the  great  railroad  lines  in  bring- 
ing to  their  respective  New  York  terminals  the  prod- 
uce of  the  different  regions  they  serve.  If  con- 
strained to  discharge  their  unsold  perishable  freight 
in  municipal  terminals  only,  or  chiefly,  what  would 
be  the  effect  on  prices  or  in  promoting  combina- 
tions to  control  supply? 

The  methods  of  the  Paris  wholesale  market  hav- 


MARKETS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE    285 

ing  been  cited  in  support  of  the  New  York  terminal 
plan,  these  pertinent  facts  are  to  be  considered: 
With  the  one  exception  of  meat,  all  classes  of  "per- 
ishable" foodstuffs  to  be  marketed  in  Paris  must  be 
taken  to  the  Central  Halls.  Private  wholesale  mar- 
kets are  illicit.  In  1909,  the  Municipal  Council  set 
out  to  investigate  the  "clandestine"  markets  of  the 
railway  freight  stations,  but  the  matter  was  soon 
dropped.  The  railway  managers  pleaded  inability 
to  give  information  on  the  subject;  their  business, 
they  said,  was  transportation  of  goods;  what  was 
sold  on  arrival  was  not  their  concern.  As  the  one 
exception  to  the  compulsory  sales  in  the  wholesale 
market,  the  meat  butchered  under  municipal  super- 
vision is  sold  at  the  abattoirs.  Being  a  branch  of 
the  municipal  market  system  of  Paris,  lauded  for 
its  profits  by  the  President  of  The  Bronx,  the  abat- 
toirs of  La  Villette  may  be  glanced  at  for  a  moment 
with  the  assistance  of  "Les  Abattoirs  Publics" 
(1906).  De  Loverdo,  in  the  pages  of  this  most 
thorough  of  reference  books  on  the  subject,  de- 
scribes these  features  of  La  Villette :  Defective  in- 
stallation of  butchers'  slaughter  sections,  where  the 
dirt  is  repugnant;  stables  badly  aired,  numerous 
cases  of  asphyxia  consequent  among  the  hogs,  and 
the  material  in  the  structures  permeable;  the  cut- 


286        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

ting-up  sections  for  viscera  untidy,  ventilation  bad, 
the  emptying  surface  channels  nests  of  pestilence; 
the  paving  permeable,  the  walls  in  bad  condition; 
water  generally  insufficient,  the  workmen  and 
women  using  soiled  rags  with  dirty  hands,  while 
there  is  a  complete  lack  of  modern  mechanical 
methods;  absolute  defects  in  the  cooling  rooms; 
sanitary  section  incomplete;  laboratory  and  means 
of  scientific  investigation  and  apparatus  for  sterili- 
zation of  slightly  tainted  meats  absent;  installation 
for  the  destruction  of  unwholesome  meats  un- 
known; collecting  sewer  in  many  of  the  establish- 
ments in  the  open  air !  The  new  eight-million  dol- 
lar La  Villette  has  rested  in  the  stage  of  "projec- 
tion" ten  years. 

Paris,  like  New  York,  knows  the  procrastina- 
tions of  bureaucracy. 


XVI.     PRICES ;  SUPPLIES ;  DISTRIBUTION. 

COMPARING  prices  of  foodstuffs  in  New  York, 
Paris,  Berlin  and  London  brings  confusing  com- 
plications in  the  data.  Some  staples,  such  as  meat, 
grain,  butter  and  coffee,  have  offered  what  seemed 
an  easy  task  to  paste-and-scissors  investigators  of 
the  cost  of  living  in  these  cities.  But  other  com- 
modities, such  as  fruit  and  vegetables,  present  spe- 
cial difficulties  even  to  touch-and-go  observers. 
Season  alone  brings  to  each  city,  for  any  particu- 
lar fruit  for  instance,  a  descending  scale  of  prices 
until  the  full-season  supply  is  reached,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  an  ascending  scale  with  the  passing  of 
the  crop.  The  seasons  are  not  synchronous  in  the 
four  cities.  Qualities  of  fruit  and  vegetables  differ 
in  the  course  of  the  seasons  as  well  as  from  year 
to  year.  The  Paris  marketmen  strictly  classify  the 
several  grades  of  vegetables,  and  each  grade  varies 
in  freshness  of  stock.  Prices  vary  in  different 
quarters  of  one  city,  and  even  in  different  stores, 
being  in  each  case  adapted  to  the  purse  of  the  aver- 
age customer  of  a  neighborhood  or  a  clientele,  and 

287 


288         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

consequently  his  negligence  or  vigilance  in  saving 
his  sous.  The  order  by  telephone  gets  the  highest 
market  charge;  inspection  by  the  buyer  in  a  store 
brings  an  accommodation  in  price,  and  perhaps  in 
quantity  and  quality.  Dealers  in  specialties  may 
know  the  current  market  rates  for  the  six  to  ten 
grades  of  the  commodities  they  buy  and  sell,  but 
the  family  buyer  must  look  sharp  to  distinguish 
differences,  while  the  casual  observer  is  not  pe- 
cuniarily interested  in  fine  distinctions.  A  judge 
on  the  bench  has  officially  recognized  seven  degrees' 
of  eggs;  the  market  tables  give  six  to  eight  classi- 
fications of  chickens.  Trade  names  in  many  cases 
signify  not  origin  but  merely  quality.  Beef  in  the 
British  markets,  especially  among  the  retailers,  takes 
grade  by  a  nomenclature  flattering  to  patriotism— 
"Pure  British  grown/'  "English  killed,"  "Ameri- 
can," etc.,  are  phrases  which  to  the  knowing  mean 
quality,  not  country.  The  worst  meats  sold  in 
England's  butcher  shops  are  "American,"  the  best 
"English,"  with  no  real  reference  to  geography. 
As  to  fruit,  France  specializes  in  pears  and  apples, 
the  fancy  "brands"  bringing  prices  higher  than  any 
kind  in  America ;  but  the  common  run  are  retailed, 
in  some  years,  much  lower  than  similar  qualities  in 
New  York  stores.  French  cauliflower,  it  is  a  fact, 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE        289 

is  sold  in  Berlin  markets;  French  tomatoes  and 
flowers  in  Covent  Garden;  American  fruit  in  most 
of  the  British  and  in  several  Continental  cities,  ef- 
fecting in  all  cases  an  influence  on  price  of  domestic 
products.  Market  reports  and  provision  store  cata- 
logues from  the  four  cities  may  answer  as  finger 
posts  for  prices,  but  are  not  conclusive  as  to  the 
class  of  the  commodity. 

What  grade  the  consumer  buys,  it  is  thus  seen, 
is  difficult  to  designate  definitely  and  compare  in 
tabular  form.  At  the  same  time  what  value  in 
money  he  pays  is  a  fine  mathematical  question. 
The  American  traveler  in  France  may  count  a  sou 
a  cent,  five  francs  a  dollar,  a  pound  French  weight 
a  pound  English  weight,  a  litre  a  quart;  it  is  his 
custom  to  calculate  in  convenient  near  equivalents. 
Facile  but  deceptive  figuring.  A  dollar  is  worth 
not  only  five  francs  but  nearly  four  cents  more 
(5.1813).  A  pound  English  weight  is  short  a 
pound  French  by  nearly  a  tenth  (453.6  grammes  as 
against  500).  Hence  the  New  York  housekeeper 
experimenting  at  living  in  Paris  must  remember 
that  her  American  100  cents  is  buying  nearly  114 
cents'  worth,  as  calculated  in  French  money  and 
weight.  That  is,  on  all  she  buys  she  is  gaining  14 
per  cent  as  compared  with  New  York  prices  and 


290        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

scales.  In  England,  a  shilling  is  not  equal  to 
twenty-five  cents,  but  only  twenty-four;  in  Ger- 
many, a  mark  is  not  the  same  as  a  quarter,  but  only 
twenty-three  and  three-fourths  cents.  The  ex- 
tremes of  these  differences,  slight  perhaps  to  the 
flush  tourist,  are  sufficient  in  percentage  to  compass 
the  entire  rise  in  the  average  cost  of  foodstuffs  in 
England  from  the  level  of  1900  to  the  maximum 
point  of  1912. 

The  much  higher  prices  of  certain  comestibles  in 
Paris  than  in  New  York  lead  the  American  to  ask 
how  they  can  co-exist  with  cheap  facilities  in  mar- 
keting. Uniformly,  there  is  but  one  correct  reply 
— taxes.  France  seeks  self-subsistence.  Her  tillers, 
or  owners,  of  the  soil  have  imposed  upon  the  coun- 
try a  tariff  protective  of  what  they  grow.  In  addi- 
tion, Paris  has  yet  that  medieval  form  of  taxation, 
the  octroi,  or  duty,  assessed  on  certain  commodities 
as  they  are  brought  within  the  fortifications  that  are 
coincident  with  the  city  boundary  line.  For  ex- 
ample, the  French  national  tariff  on  beef  is  pro- 
hibitive, twenty  francs  minimum  on  one  hundred 
kilogrammes  live  weight — in  round  numbers  $3.90 
on  two  hundred  and  twenty  pounds.  The  octroi 
on  a  beef  animal  runs  besides  from  $6  to  $10,  de- 
pending on  weight,  and  the  butchering  head-tax 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         291 

may  reach  $2.  Steak,  then,  at  40  cents!  Butter 
and  coffee  are  also  high  in  price  through  taxation. 
A  hundred  kilogrammes  of  Holland  butter  pays 
twenty  francs  customs  duty  at  the  frontier  and 
fourteen  and  a  half  francs  octroi  at  the  gates  of 
Paris.  There  is  no  octroi  on  fruit  and  vegetables, 
but  it  strikes  beef,  pork,  delicatessen,  poultry  and 
game,  fish,  oysters,  butter,  cheese,  mustard,  grapes, 
oils,  alcohol,  wood,  coal,  fodders  and  grain.  How 
the  national  tariff  affects  price  is  seen  in  the  in- 
stance of  wheat,  which,  selling  in  March,  1911,  at 
18.38  francs  per  quintal  in  New  York  and  advanc- 
ing to  only  19.10  in  London,  sold  in  Paris  at  26.69. 
In  1911,  the  index  numbers  for  ten  principal  articles 
of  household  consumption  subject  to  tariff  duties 
in  France  and  Germany  stood:  England,  100; 
France  and  Germany,  118.  Coffee  was  not  in  this 
list.  In  France  the  minimum  tariff  on  coffee  is  148 
francs  on  100  kilogrammes,  somewhat  more  than 
twelve  cents  a  pound.  The  maximum  duty  is  dou- 
ble. While  the  coffees  displayed  in  the  Paris  gro- 
ceries take  every  fancy  name  known  to  the  world 
trade,  as  a  fact  more  than  90  per  cent  of  all  the 
importations  are  officially  reported  as  from  Brazil. 
It  is,  of  course,  the  price  of  what  any  population 
principally  eats  that  counts  in  its  cost  of  living.  In 


292         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

Paris,  as  in  London,  a  direct  effect  of  the  people's 
markets  is  seen  in  the  encouragement  of  market 
gardeners,  local  and  distant,  who  raise  the  cheaper 
kinds  of  produce.  While,  especially  during  the  crop 
seasons,  the  larger  part  of  the  supply  comes  to 
Paris  by  rail,  the  considerable  deliveries  from  the 
local  gardeners,  by  wagon  to  the  market  or  direct 
to  large  buyers,  indicate  the  consequences  of  a  cer- 
tainty of  sales  of  the  food  of  the  masses  and  con- 
fidence in  the  market  prices.  Large  amounts  of 
the  cheaper  sorts  of  fruit,  berries,  and  vegetables 
are  hence  consumed;  here  quantity  has  an  excep- 
tional weight  in  price  comparisons. 

In  view  of  such  puzzling  qualifications  of  ap- 
parent facts,  quotation  of  sets  of  figures  from  for- 
eign sources  to  enforce  the  argument  that  pushcarts 
and  street  markets  cut  prices  might  fail  to  strength- 
en conclusions  that  stand  to  reason. 

A  word  here  on  the  general  trend  in  the  prices  of 
table  necessaries.  In  the  heaps  of  clippings  before 
me  on  this  subject  is  a  magazine  article,  "Why 
Things  Will  Never  Be  Cheaper,"  and  in  the  text 
the  idea  of  the  heading  is  repeated:  "The  worst 
of  it  all  is  that  things  will  never  be  any  cheaper  than 
they  are  now.  As  gold  increases  prices  are  forced 
up."  The  positive  and  sweeping  convictions  of  the 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         293 

author  of  the  article,  his  swift  penetration  to  the  re- 
mote and  all-comprehensive  cause  of  high  prices, 
and  his  command  of  the  technical  terms  of  finance 
and  pure  economics — all  these  carry  him  to  spheres 
of  ratiocination  beyond  the  purview  of  the  com- 
monplace collector  of  everyday  facts.  Yet  this  I 
must  venture  to  say :  In  my  interviews  with  man- 
agers of  markets,  public  and  private,  with  numer- 
ous literary  and  statistical  observers  of  the  price 
problem,  and  with  many  men  of  affairs,  in  the  four 
great  cities,  I  have  never  met  one  who  would  say 
he  had  detected  the  slightest  influence  of  the  gold 
supply  on  current  local  market  prices.  Among  the 
dealers  in  foodstuffs  and  the  market  officials  the 
practical  view  was  invariably  taken  that  with  large 
available  supplies  come  low  prices,  and  for  proof 
they  would  point  out  the  rise  to  double,  or  the  fall 
to  half,  in  the  price  of  potatoes,  or  cabbage,  or  wine, 
as  purely  a  crop  consequence.  In  the  Berlin  mar- 
ket superintendent's  reports  for  1910  and  1911  and 
the  Paris  market  director's  reports  for  the  same 
years,  the  unusual  rise  of  prices  of  certain  commodi- 
ties were  accepted  as  plainly  the  results  of  the  ex- 
traordinarily wet  year  and  dry  year.  Some  staple 
commodities — bread,  wine,  fruit,  fish — were  in  1911 
no  dearer  in  France  than  for  years  previous. 


294         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

Among  the  writers  on  general  prices,  Leroy-Beau- 
lieu  ("ficonomiste,"  November,  1911),  St.  Leon 
("La  Vie  Chere,"  1911),  and  J.  A.  Hobson  ("Gold 
Prices  and  Wages,"  1913)  regard  the  gold  supply 
as  of  imperceptible  influence.  A  rise  in  the  price 
of  meat  in  the  United  States  was  foreseen  by  J. 
Ogden  Armour  in  1906  ("The  Packers,  the  Private 
Car  Lines,  and  the  People"),  a  chief  cause  being 
the  decline  in  western  range  cattle  raising.  Cheap- 
ness through  farm  cattle  might  follow.  By  British 
writers  the  cheapening  of  meats  in  free  trade  Great 
Britain  is  today  generally  regarded  as  a  certainty 
with  increase  in  the  Argentine  supply,  as  may  be 
the  case  in  the  United  States.  All  in  all,  in  various 
markets,  cumulative  special  or  coincidental  causes 
for  short  supplies  have  in  recent  years  been  a 
strong  factor  in  higher  prices. 

An  additional  ground  for  hope  of  lower  prices 
of  foodstuffs  for  New  York  exists  in  the  possible 
future  utilization  of  large  areas  of  land  in  the  East 
at  present  not  employed,  or  but  partly  employed, 
in  production.  Milton  Whitney,  Chief  of  the  Na- 
tional Bureau  of  Soils,  writes :  "There  are  tens 
of  thousands  of  acres  of  agricultural  lands  in  a 
near-by  radius  of  Greater  New  York,  which  are 
not  at  present  under  cultivation,"  but  which  "are 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         295 

adapted  to  the  production  of  truck  crops,  for  sum- 
mer, fall  and  winter  use,  fruit,  live  stock  and  dairy 
products."  They  "could  be  made  to  supply  to  a 
great  extent  the  New  York  markets  with  perishable 
foodstuffs  which,  if  properly  handled,  would  in 
my  opinion  not  only  relieve  the  question  of  the 
food  supply  of  Greater  New  York  but  would  to  a 
large  extent  reduce  the  prevailing  high  prices  for 
vegetables,  meats  and  poultry  products."  This, 
from  one  whose  profession  is  to  get  at  such  facts, 
we  may  accept  as  better  guidance  for  a  correct  fore- 
cast than  the  statement  on  the  same  point  made  by 
the  President  of  The  Bronx:  "The  suburbs  of 
the  large  cities  are  taken  up  by  fine  estates  so  that 
they  are  out  of  the  class  of  productive  lands."  The 
study  given  the  local  transportation  methods  of 
Philadelphia  by  Prof.  C.  L.  King  have  caused  him 
to  expect  benefits  through  better  trolley  freight 
service  from  farmlands  of  the  vicinity  to  terminals 
in  various  sections  of  that  city.  In  New  York,  the 
transit  systems  now  being  extended  have  their 
promise  of  improvements  in  local  freight  carrying. 
The  possibilities  in  motor  truck  service  on  the  prod- 
uce piers  and  in  connection  with  the  markets  are 
also  attracting  some  attention.  So  proceeds,  point 
by  point,  the  practical  struggle  against  high  costs. 


296        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

As  to  distribution  of  food  through  new  whole- 
sale markets  in  Manhattan :  A  classification  of  the 
various  foodstuffs  which  come  to  the  city  for  sale 
enables  one  to  discriminate  as  to  where  improve- 
ment is  urgent  and  where  none  is  soon  probable. 
Present  methods  have  been  developed,  in  channels 
not  easily  changed,  for  the  transportation  of  each 
class  of  food  supplies  to  its  particular  rail  or  water 
terminals  and  thence  in  part  to  private  storehouses. 
Inquiry  brings  out  the  fact  that  the  sole  class  of 
foodstuffs  in  immediate  pressing  need  of  improved 
facilities  for  handling  is  country  produce,  and  this 
only  in  the  height  of  the  season.  Indications  are 
that  all  kinds  may,  in  time,  through  improved 
processes  and  organization,  be  carried  more  cheaply 
and  directly  than  at  present  to  market-places,  com- 
mission men,  wholesalers,  retailers  and  consumers. 
But  that  the  establishment  of  the  system  of  whole- 
sale markets  which  has  been  proposed  will  be  a 
certain  improvement  I  found  generally  doubted  by 
men  in  all  branches  of  marketing  except  some  in 
business  near  the  proposed  markets.  Butter,  cheese, 
and  eggs  have  already,  in  the  downtown  West  Side 
district  long  given  over  to  dairy  and  kindred  prod- 
ucts, an  enormous  private  market  generally  regarded 
as  impossible  to  dislodge.  At  the  headquarters  and 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         297 

main  sales  place  of  this  trade,  the  Mercantile  Ex- 
change, the  proposition  to  affect  it  through  the  en- 
larged West  Washington-Gansevoort  market  is 
treated  with  scorn  and  derision.  Next,  the  meat 
supply,  city  and  western,  goes  most  of  it  in  refriger- 
ator cars  direct  to  scores  of  private  storage  houses 
scattered  in  the  five  boroughs;  Swift  &  Co.  alone 
have  seventeen;  none  but  a  dreamer  could  today 
propose  confining  wholesale  meat  selling  to  public 
markets  in  New  York ;  the  causes  for  concentration 
in  Paris,  London,  and  Berlin — quarantining  and 
taxation — are  lacking.  Arrivals  in  New  York  of 
fish  and  live  poultry  are  carried  direct  to  their  re- 
spective principal  points  of  sale,  which  are  inde- 
pendent of  other  markets.  Country  produce  is  the 
one  commodity  the  handling  of  which  has  given  a 
show  of  reason  for  the  official  proposal  of  a  sys- 
tem of  costly  wholesale  markets.  Yet  when  the  ob- 
server visits  the  principal  fruit  and  produce  piers 
on  the  North  River,  from  No.  21  to  No.  36,  sees 
the  wide  streets  and  spacious  landings  and  long  row 
of  goods  shelters  called  "bonnets"  in  West  street 
and  talks  with  the  men  who  day  by  day  manage 
the  enormous  arrivals  either  as  dealers  or  trans- 
portation agents,  he  can  understand  their  contempt 
for  proposals  for  a  huge  new  costly  pile  of  munici- 


298        MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

pal  warehouses,  storage  plants,  and  general  markets, 
the  whole  plan  propped  up  by  incorrect  testimony 
as  to  the  revenue  producing  powers  of  municipal 
undertakings  in  foreign  or  smaller  American  cities. 
What  might  be  done  practically  at  little  expense 
on  the  space  and  piers  now  occupied  by  the  West 
Washington-Gansevoort  market  could  doubtless  be 
made  a  profitable  study  to  the  city  by  the  four  as- 
sociations interested  in  the  neighborhood  which 
unitedly  have  given  countenance  to  the  scheme  for 
the  new  eight  to  twelve  million  dollar  expansion  of 
that  market.  That  the  latter  project  is  now  dead 
is  quite  a  certainty;  it  has  been  more  than  a  year 
before  the  community  without  action ;  the  marginal 
railway,  which  was  to  carry  its  supplies,  is  given 
up;  the  project  is  tied  up  with  proposals  for  other 
borough  markets  to  cost  at  least  twenty  million 
dollars.  What,  however,  the  associations  have  to 
work  on  as  bases  for  improvement  are  the  West 
Washington  market  with  its  adjoining  pier  space 
and  the  Gansevoort  market  square,  the  latter  having 
an  area  of  125,000  square  feet.  Certain  possible 
features  for  the  proposed  costly  market,  as  given 
in  the  associations'  pamphlet,  might  be  embodied 
in  a  less  ambitious  plan.  With  the  present  market 
area  brought  up  to  its  easy  possibilities,  and  the 


MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE        299 

other  city  markets  operated  to  their  fullest  extent 
according  to  modern  methods,  the  wholesaling  link 
with  incoming  supplies  might  be  well  enough  se- 
cured pending  the  immediate  general  transforma- 
tion of  the  metropolis.  In  the  matter  of  handling 
produce  alone,  free  pushcarts  and  open-air  markets 
might  effect  radical  changes  in  costs  and  methods. 
Viewed  broadly,  as  clearly  illustrated  in  the  pres- 
ent state  of  the  New  York  market  system,  the 
science  of  city  market  establishment  and  manage- 
ment is  only  in  its  infancy.  Municipal  market  of- 
ficials everywhere  are  usually  occupied  merely  in 
the  details  of  administration.  M.  Georges  Rouge, 
the  chief  of  the  Paris  bureau,  a  master  of  his  du- 
ties, expressed  these  sentiments  on  this  point :  "I 
regret  that  there  have  been  no  relations  established 
between  the  market  authorities  of  the  four  great 
cities  of  which  you  speak.  No  commissions  have 
visited  from  one  of  these  cities  to  another,  so  far 
as  I  know,  in  this  generation.  How  the  various 
market  systems  have  risen  out  of  the  past  has  not 
been  traced,  to  the  benefit  of  us  all."  De  Massy, 
who  went  to  England  in  1862,  representing  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  of  France,  was  the  last 
Frenchman  to  investigate  London  methods  and  give 
a  complete  comparative  study  of  the  market  estab- 


300        MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE 

lishments  of  London  and  Paris.  There  is  not  one 
book  in  the  British  museum  on  London  or  other 
markets.  The  American  "Special  Libraries"  num- 
ber, March,  1913,  giving  a  list  of  publications  on 
markets,  the  result  of  diligent  research,  revealed 
the  paucity  of  comprehensive  inquiry  into  the  sub- 
ject. 


XVII.     A  METROPOLITAN  MARKET  SYS- 
TEM, CUT-PRICE  AND  COSTLESS. 

IN  brief,  here  is  what  I  advocate: 

1.  Ambulant   street  vending,    free  to  all 

comers,  limited  in  range  only  by  ne- 
cessary health  laws  and  any  higher 
social  exigencies  of  other  traffic. 

2.  Open-air  markets,  to  be  held  for  a  few 

hours  semi-weekly  or  tri-weekly,  in 
street  or  park  or  other  public  space, 
in  any  quarter  of  Greater  New  York 
where  bodies  of  consumers  may  de- 
mand them ;  free  to  all  vendors  either 
of  foodstuffs  or  manufactured  articles 
of  household  or  personal  use. 

3.  Existing  public  markets  to  be  used  to 

the  fullest  extent  through  modern 
methods — auctioning,  licensing  the 
market  commission  men,  selling  by 
sample,  ordering  from  producers  for 
direct  delivery,  encouraging  the  at- 
tendance of  local  producers. 

Not  a  complete  system,  granted;  only  a  fair  be- 
ginning, at  the  wide  base.  But  the  principle  is  cor- 
rect; results  would  tell  at  once.  No  other  project 
yet  made  public  affords  the  immediately  possible 
foundation  for  a  fully  rounded-out,  naturally  de- 

301 


302        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

veloped  system,  permitting  free  play  to  every  form 
of  both  wholesaling  and  retailing  foodstuffs  in  New 
York. 

Consumers'  rights  are  the  main  guide  to  these 
reforms. 

Consumers  have  a  community  right  to  the  benefits 
of  free  ambulant  pushcart  selling.  A  certain  pri- 
mary benefit  would  be  general  education  as  to  the 
positive  right  of  the  masses  to  service  on  and 
through  the  highway.  Consumers  are  afforded  by 
pushcart  selling  a  choice  between  outdoor  and  in- 
door merchants;  are  informed  through  the  cart 
displays  as  to  prices,  qualities  and  supplies  of  food ; 
are  protected  through  the  elastic  numbers  of  ven- 
dors from  combinations  to  uphold  prices.  The  push- 
cart brings  the  articles  sold  to  the  test  of  daylight; 
gives  the  buyer  a  varied  choice ;  offers  comparisons 
with  storekeepers'  stocks  and  prices;  encourages 
an  increase  of  supplies;  frees  buyers  from  "the 
attack,"  subtle  or  aggressive,  when  in  the  hands  of 
indoor  salesmen;  brings  to  consumers  what  is 
wanted,  when  and  where  it  is  wanted,  at  home  or 
workshop. 

Consumers  have  a  right,  if  they  have  any  rights 
in  the  agencies  of  social  progress,  to  the  service  of 
pushcart  vendors  who  are  free.  The  free  vendor  is 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         303 

a  different  being  from  the  harried  "commercial  out- 
cast" who  has  long  been  known  to  the  streets  of 
New  York.  Yet  what  this  victim  of  the  policemen 
under  orders  and  of  the  predatory  acts  of  padrone, 
politician  and  storekeeper  has  been  able  to  accom- 
plish as  middleman  nearest  the  people  of  small 
means  indicates  the  possibilities  that  lie  in  him  if 
not  persecuted  through  unjust  law.  He  ought  to 
utilize  the  streets  legitimately  for  the  public  good. 
His  occupation  puts  to  social  use  much  otherwise 
unemployable  labor  and  unserviceable  capital,  to  the 
smallest  units;  gives  small  home  producers  oppor- 
tunity to  find  sales ;  employs  the  infirm  and  elderly ; 
relieves  the  city  from  a  part  of  its  charitable 
charge ;  above  all,  regulates  the  prices  of  other  sell- 
ers to  the  masses.  Berlin,  in  closing  most  of  its 
streets  to  pushcart  vendors,  it  is  now  seen  by  its 
market  officials,  created  and  for  years  maintained 
special  advantages  for  the  rapidly  growing  depart- 
ment-store provision  sections.  The  forcible  with- 
drawal of  New  York's  pushcart  vendors  from  many 
streets  during  the  last  year,  and  their  concentration 
by  the  police  mostly  in  small  downtown  districts, 
have  lessened  seriously  the  sales  of  the  craft,  ac- 
cording to  common  complaint  of  its  members.  It 
is  evident  that  West  Side  and  central  factory  and 


304         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

other  employes  cannot  walk  blocks  at  their  lunch 
hour  to  reach  the  fixed  pushcart  street  markets  as 
now  temporarily  established,  nor  can  housewives 
of  distant  districts  make  use  of  them  in  their  buy- 
ing. Consequently,  among  these  classes  of  buyers 
thousands  of  persons  forced  to  economize  closely 
are  today  paying  store  prices  for  their  fruit  or 
going  without  it  in  hunger.  In  other  words,  this 
clearing  of  the  pushcart  men  from  many  streets 
has  given  rise  to  a  storekeeper's  tax  on  the  poor, 
not  calculable  but  undoubtedly  onerous.  Conjec- 
ture might  reasonably  place  the  tax  in  money  at 
tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  a  week,  while  the  tax 
on  human  force  through  insufficient  feeding  is  be- 
yond estimate.  The  New  York  "Medical  Times" 
quotes  Professor  Giddings,  of  Columbia  Univer- 
sity: "It  is  a  conservative  estimate  that  one-third 
of  the  people  in  the  large  cities  of  the  country  do 
not  get  enough  to  eat." 

Pushcart  vendors  if  made  free  in  New  York 
might  be  expected  to  rise  in  worth  and  efficiency  of 
service  to  the  level  at  which  their  similars  stand  in 
London  and  Paris.  Men  having  the  pride  of  free 
citizens  would  in  increasing  numbers  enter  the  oc- 
cupation; they  would  learn  to  co-operate — in  buy- 
ing, in  maintaining-  trade  discipline,  in  bettering 


MARKETS   FOR  THE    PEOPLE        305 

their  stock  and  increasing  its  varieties.  To  sell  in 
New  York's  streets  is  now  criminal ;  it  ought  in  jus- 
tice to  be  respectable.  "Another  raid  of  peddlers 
in  Harlem;  forty  locked  up!"  ought  to  be  impossi- 
ble as  a  newspaper  heading.  "Is  it  true  that  the 
peddlers  will  not  clean  up  their  litter?"  I  asked  a 
police  officer  while  looking  at  a  line  of  vendors' 
carts  in  a  tolerated  quarter.  "Not  on  my  post/'  he 
replied.  "Look  along  the  street  there ;  it  is  as  clean 
as  a  grocery  floor."  Several  patrolmen  told  me  the 
pushcart  men  were  in  general  anxious  to  obey  the 
law  on  every  point  except  going  where  they  were 
forbidden,  which  at  present  is  almost  the  entire 
street  area  of  the  city. 

"Is  the  pushcart  trade  a  benefit  to  the  masses, 
and  are  the  vendors  a  sufficiently  responsible  class 
to  perform  this  work  to  their  own  credit  and  the 
good  of  society?"  This  question  I  put  to  the  Chief 
of  the  Markets  Bureau  of  Paris,  to  the  Chief  In- 
spector of  Berlin's  Central  Markets,  and  to  the  Chief 
Officer  of  the  London  County  Council  Public  Con- 
trol Department.  In  each  case  the  reply  was  em- 
phatically in  the  affirmative.  "What  is  the  special 
service  performed  by  the  coster?"  I  asked  at  the 
London  County  Council's  offices.  "The  speedy  dis- 
posal of  a  glut,"  was  the  prompt  reply.  "Apples  or 


306        MARKETS   FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

other  fruit,  strawberries  or  other  berries,  potatoes 
and  vegetables,  every  sort  of  produce  in  its  high 
season,  might  be  a  drug  in  the  market  and  much  of 
it  left  on  the  producers'  hands,  were  it  not  for  the 
street  vendors.     These,  some  of  whom  may  be  for 
the  moment  among  the  unemployed  or  the  casual 
workers,  catch  wind  of  a  glut  and  they  seem  to 
spring  from  the  earth  to  spread  the  welcome  cheap 
food  all  over  London.    This  is  a  great  boon  to  the 
underfed  poor,  for  without  the  coster  the  overplus 
of   the   day's   market   would   never   reach   them." 
"Then,"  was  the  next  inquiry,  "the  farmer  or  mar- 
ket gardener,  realizing  something  on  his  shipment, 
is  encouraged  to  get  to  work  again,  producing;  if 
he  suffered  a  total  loss  he  would  be  discouraged?" 
"True,  and  so  he  is  kept  at  his  work  with  confidence 
in  some  gain.     The  street  vendor  thus  on  the  one 
hand  helps  to   employ  the  producer   and   on  the 
other  to  feed  the  people."     In  New  York,  a  girl 
stenographer,  writing  to  the  press,  used  this  Lon- 
doner's word  "boon":     "The  fruit  peddlers  are  a 
boon  to  a  majority  of  employes  down  town,  whose 
luncheon  consists  chiefly  in  just  the  fruit  they  buy 
from  these  peddlers."    An  East  Side  factory  hand 
said  to  me:     "The  mothers  of  many  young  girls 
where  I  work  give  them  five  cents  for  their  lunch. 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE        307 

They  can  buy  double  the  apples  and  oranges  with 
it  from  the  peddler  that  they  can  from  the  fruit 
store."  At  half  the  present  prices  of  fruit-stand 
stock  a  million  self-denying  New  York  poor  might 
when  hungry  eat  twice  the  quantity  they  do  now. 

The  consumer  has  the  right  to  rid  himself  of  the 
padrone,  the  politician,  and  the  storekeeper  who 
rents  street-space  to  peddlers.  It  is  the  consumer 
who  when  buying  in  the  street  now  pays  the  cumu- 
lative blackmail  or  private  taxes  of  these  birds  of 
prey  on  what  is  a  beneficial  and  should  be  a  wholly 
legitimate  trade.  He  should  be  able  to  buy  any- 
where in  New  York  from  a  peddler  uninterfered 
with  while  within  his  rights.  "I  was  once  selling 
to  a  customer  in  front  of  the  Mansion  House  in 
London,"  said  a  New  York  East  Side  ex-coster- 
monger,  "when  a  bobby  ordered  me  to  move  on, 
and  as  I  kept  at  my  sale  started  to  arrest  me.  'Oh, 
no;'  said  the  customer;  'we  are  both  within  the 
law,  and  I'll  see  the  coster  safe  through  at  the  po- 
lice station/  There  was  no  arrest." 

The  consumer  has  a  right  to  the  cheap  and  con- 
venient service  of  the  semi-weekly  or  tri-weekly 
open-air  market.  Survivor,  in  Paris,  London,  and 
the  Berlin  suburban  municipalities,  of  the  two 
forms  of  public  retail  markets — the  housed  and  the 


3o8        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

open — this  type  is  one  of  the  successful  commer- 
cial adaptations  to  city  needs.  The  turn  for  or 
against  any  method  in  trade  may  result  on  the  sav- 
ing of  one  cent  in  ten  or  the  avoidance  of  a  mo- 
ment's inconvenience  in  purchasing.  But  open-air 
markets  have  numerous  and  considerable  advan- 
tages. "Why,"  asks  the  family  buyer,  "should  mar- 
ket dealers  sit  all  week  in  stalls  to  sell  to  the  people 
of  a  neighborhood  the  food  that  may  be  bought  in 
a  few  hours  on  two  or  three  days?"  The  query 
suggests,  for  the  permanent  indoor  stallholders,  un- 
avoidable "overhead  charges,"  stale  stock  replen- 
ished by  small  purchases,  and  tacit  agreements  as 
to  prices.  In  the  housed  market,  moreover,  the  sell- 
er's maneuvres  are  for  the  best  price  from  each 
straggling  buyer,  for  he  can  hold  his  stock  in  stor- 
age ;  but  in  the  open-air  market,  the  seller's  incentive 
first  of  all  is  sales  to  the  market-day's  concourse, 
and  he  is  loth  to  load  up  again  and  carry  stock 
away.  The  purchaser  going  through  a  housed  daily 
market  often  passes  alone  rows  of  stalls;  he  is  eyed, 
"sized  up,"  and  probably  solicited  by  vendors,  while 
he  is  reluctant  to  betray  in  petty  expenditures  his 
enforced  economies ;  on  the  contrary,  moving  along 
in  an  open-air  market  the  small  purchaser  is  one 
of  a  busy  crowd,  is  undisturbed  in  forming  his 


MARKETS   FOR  THE   PEOPLE        309 

judgment,  and  in  buying  can  order,  unobserved, 
quantities  to  suit  his  purse.  The  free  open-air  mar- 
ket is  a  democratic  meeting  place,  where  the  small- 
est transient  seller  may  meet  the  smallest  casual 
buyer,  to  the  benefit  of  both.  In  an  occasional  mar- 
ket, circumstances  favor  bargains,  especially  just 
before  closing  time;  in  a  permanent  market,  cir- 
cumstances favor  holding  stock  back.  The  open- 
air  market  selling  goes  off  freely  with  a  rush.  A 
housed  market  has  troublesome  regulations,  such 
as  the  three  hours'  suspension  for  cleaning  during 
the  afternoons  in  the  Berlin  system.  The  pro- 
ducer who  sells  in  an  open-air  market  is  gaining 
meantime  through  the  growth  of  his  crops  and  ani- 
mals at  home ;  the  stall-holding  non-producing  deal- 
er must  make  all  his  profit  from  handling  his  little 
stock.  At  an  open-air  market  are  producers  desir- 
ous of  selling  their  fresh  stock,  consisting  of  all 
varieties  and  qualities  of  the  day,  at  prices  an- 
nounced on  cards  to  catch  the  attention  of  the 
passer-by;  in  a  housed  market  are  dealers,  who 
combinedly  guard  against  redundancy  of  supplies, 
and  who  often  do  not  label  prices  for  the  best  ar- 
ticles, the  customer  being  usually  obliged  to  stop 
and  ask  before  he  can  settle  in  his  mind  whether 
he  can  afford  to  buy.  "Confidence  in  the  price  and 


310        MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

its  advantages  involve  a  mental  operation  before 
deciding  to  buy,"  the  Chief  of  Statistics  for  France 
said  to  me  in  explanation  of  the  trick  of  the  trade 
when  sellers  do  not  show  their  prices;  "and  that 
operation  is  facilitated  when  goods  are  displayed  in 
a  clear  light  and  marked  by  price  cards.  When 
merely  told  the  price,  the  questioning  and  confused 
customer  may  make  a  regrettable  hurried  decision." 
A  Londoner,  one  of  the  promoters  of  the  proposed 
borough  housed  markets  of  a  decade  ago,  gave  me 
this  point  from  his  experience:  "The  preference 
for  open-air  markets  is  a  phenomenon  of  psychol- 
ogy. Our  people  in  London  will  not  go  into  an 
arcade  market"  (one  with  rows  of  stalls).  "They 
stay  in  the  open,  for  one  thing,  for  the  paradoxical 
reason  that  they  want  to  keep  their  business  to 
themselves.  The  shy  individual  is  lost  in  the  bus- 
tling mass.  Buyers  want  to  know  price,  quality  and 
probable  origin  of  stock,  all  at  a  glance,  and  don't 
want  to  be  singled  out  and  bothered  by  the  impor- 
tunities of  sellers  as  they  walk  along,  looking  at 
the  displays." 

Open-air  markets  are  economical  to  the  city,  be- 
ing located  or  removed  without  cost,  to  suit  neigh- 
borhood changes;  market  halls  are  immovable, 
costly  to  establish,  and  sources  of  loss  while  fail- 


MARKETS   FOR   THE   PEOPLE        311 

ing.  A  commission  of  Berlin  officials  which  in 
1906  visited  the  larger  cities  of  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria-Hungary to  investigate  markets,  say  in  their 
report  ("Bericht  liber  eine  Informationsreise,"  page 
63)  :  "As  in  Berlin,  the  public  of  Vienna  and 
Budapest  show  a  preference  for  free  open-air  mar- 
kets to  closed-in  market  halls."  The  reasons  there- 
for take  up  several  pages  of  the  report,  the  con- 
clusion being :  "The  district  halls  seem  to  be  losing 
their  warrant  for  existence  and  to  be  inevitably 
approaching  their  end."  Fifty-eight  Italian  cities, 
including  a  number  in  the  inclement  Alpine  regions, 
have  open-air  markets  ("Annuario  Statistico  delle 
Citta  Italiane,"  1910).  In  the  United  Kingdom, 
the  more  than  three  hundred  and  fifty  towns  and 
districts  having  market  systems  quite  invariably 
have  open  market-places  ("Municipal  Year  Book," 
1912).  An  article  in  the  February,  1913,  issue  of 
"The  American  City,"  describing  the  markets  in 
71  cities  and  towns  of  the  United  States  and  Can- 
ada, mentioned  47  as  being  in  the  open,  having  open 
annexes,  or  being  attended  by  farmers,  presumably 
in  the  open. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  it  may  safely  be  ex- 
pected that  New  York's  present  administration's 
"permanent  sheltered  markets/'  having  every  com- 


312         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

mercial  drawback  of  "market  halls"  or  "housed 
markets,"  will  fail  to  meet  public  needs.  If  the 
pushcart  vendors  obtain  their  just  freedom  in  the 
streets,  such  markets  will  be  abandoned  by  most  of 
them;  if  the  stallholder  must  pay  for  the  hauling 
of  his  stock  from  the  wholesalers  and  also  a  rental 
for  his  market  stall,  he  will  be  obliged  to  meet  the 
competition  of  dealers  appearing  in  private  store- 
rooms better  placed. 

The  consumer  has  a  social  and  a  legal  right  to  the 
uses,  individually  or  through  his  purveyors,  of  pub- 
lic space  for  wholesale  marketing  purposes.  What 
space  or  spaces  should  be  so  used  is  a  question  of 
convenience  to  the  community.  The  public  whole- 
sale market  is  a  time-saving  device ;  it  is  in  cases  a 
method  of  obviating  waste  in  hauling,  a  common 
ground  for  sellers  and  buyers,  a  means  of  collecting 
goods  for  inspection  by  consumers  or  officials. 
From  various  angles  it  is  seen  as  a  fair  for  the 
exhibition  and  comparison  of  commodities;  a  cen- 
tre for  ready  transfer  or  delivery;  an  exchange  for 
dealers;  a  testing  place  for  samples;  a  source  of 
direct  supply  for  retailers.  All  countries  of  our 
civilization  recognize  the  use  of  common  areas  for 
the  sale  of  foodstuffs  in  bulk,  as  they  do  highways 
for  the  transportation  of  foodstuffs.  Recent  de- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         313 

velopments,  however,  in  the  larger  cities  have  left 
unsettled  certain  questions  of  policy  and  expediency 
relative  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  public  administra- 
tion and  to  the  expenditures  advisable  in  establish- 
ing wholesale  markets.  The  tendency  in  Paris  is 
clearly  to  a  falling  off  in  the  importance  of  the 
Central  Halls  and  to  an  increase  in  the  marketing 
business  at  railway  terminals;  in  Berlin  the  whole- 
sale market  is  in  no  wise  the  main  wholesale  agency 
for  the  city's  supplies;  in  London,  the  sales  of 
Covent  Garden  and  of  the  commodities  other  than 
meat  and  fish  in  the  city's  system  have  steadily  fallen 
away  in  proportion  to  population.  In  New  York, 
the  idea  of  easily  transferring,  through  imagined 
economies,  the  enormous  sales  at  piers  and  rail- 
road yards  and  private  warehouses  to  public  whole- 
sale markets  is  quixotic. 

Consumers  have  the  first  right  of  consideration 
as  between  themselves  and  the  provision  store  deal- 
ers in  the  matter  of  highway  market  service.  It 
is  not  a  certainty  that  substantial  storekeepers  would 
be  seriously  injured  by  free  street  selling.  As  it  is, 
no  sooner  does  one  of  them  build  up  a  fair  custom 
than,  in  a  basement  or  a  "hole  in  the  wall,"  a 
small  competitor — who  might  follow  street  peddling 
if  permitted — appears,  to  split  up  his  trade.  As 


314         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

already  noted,  wherever  a  collection  of  pushcart 
dealers  or  an  open-air  market  is  established,  "a 
commercial  atmosphere"  is  created,  soon  to  be 
shared  in  by  merchants  in  stores  about  the  mar- 
kets. These  learn  the  value  to  themselves  of  the 
street  vendors. 

Consumers,  of  course,  have  valid  and  important 
rights  to  be  defended  in  the  remoter  economic 
spheres  of  transportation,  produce  exchanges,  the 
"packing"  industry,  and  commission  men's  asso- 
ciations. But  the  operations  of  these  agencies  are 
far  from  the  usual  direct  influence  of  individual 
consumers.  The  wrongs  in  this  respect  are  being 
reached  by  legislation  at  the  pace  at  which  law- 
making  marches.  To  advise  consumers  to  devote 
time  and  force  in  that  line  of  effort  and  patiently 
await  results  is  to  mock  at  them. 

The  consumer  has  rights,  small  and  great,  as 
against  both  the  sellers  and  the  authorities,  which 
he  might  effectively  insist  on  through  organization. 
In  his  program  for  reform  he  might  announce  these 
as  among  his  minor  rights :  To  require  public  ven- 
dors to  designate  by  a  card  the  price  of  each  com- 
modity on  sale;  to  have  stock  so  arranged  as  to 
permit  choice  at  the  prices  advertised;  to  examine 
purchases  before  payment;  to  have  means  of  re- 


MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE         315 

porting  at  once  sales  of  unlawful  goods ;  to  oppose 
advances  in  pf ice  by  undue  units,  such  as  five  cents 
where  one  might  be  warranted.  In  a  larger  way, 
associated  consumers  might  include  as  rightful  de- 
mands :  To  have  accurate  information,  day  by  day, 
of  the  current  prices  in  all  markets  under  public 
authority;  to  have  ready  access  to  publicly  regu- 
lated weighing  stations;  to  be  protected  from  re- 
sales in  public  markets;  to  have  purchases  sold  by 
weight  on  the  asking;  to  get  at  the  movements 
and  prices  of  the  market  through  auctioning;  to 
have  speculation  in  market  stands  or  stalls  pre- 
vented through  weekly  tenancies;  to  have  the  field 
of  marketing  kept  clear  of  licenses,  tolls,  combina- 
tions or  unjustifiable  restrictions;  to  have  every 
modern  public  and  private  agency  operating  in  the 
markets  in  its  appropriate  sphere,  to  the  common 
profit. 

The  consumer's  rights !  If  a  right  is  worth  hav- 
ing it  is  worth  fighting  for.  To  know  his  rights 
and  fight  for  them  in  their  good  order  is,  princi- 
pally, "The  Consumer's  Part." 

Also,  if  the  consumer  is  to  act  intelligently,  his 
part  includes  carefully  weighing  the  various  proj- 
ects before  the  public  for  reducing  the  prices  not 
only  of  his  table  necessaries  but  many  other  arti- 


3i6         MARKETS    FOR   THE    PEOPLE 

cles  of  household  and  personal  consumption.  Which 
project  is  plainly  practical?  Which  brings 
economies  within  sight?  Which  can  come  without 
expense?  Which  requires  little  organized  effort? 
Which  is  the  outcome  of  a  try-out  in  other  great 
cities?  Which  will  give  every  one  opportunity  to 
sell?  Which  will  at  once  help  one's  neighbor? 
Which  asks  nothing  from  the  public  funds?  Which" 
is  the  result  of  an  international  study?  Which  com- 
pares projects  of  all  forms  and  kinds,  giving  due 
consideration  to  each?  Which  is  disinterested? 
Which  carries  its  own  clear  evidence  of  a  general 
benefit? 

On  the  challenge  implied  in  this  interrogatory,  it 
is  for  time  to  render  the  verdict. 


The  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects 


THE  PURCHASING 
POWER  OF  MONEY 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  CAUSES  DETERMINING 
THE  GENERAL  LEVEL  OF  PRICES 

AN  EXPLANATION  OF  THE  RISE  IN  THE  COST  OF  LIVING 
BETWEEN   1896  AND   1913 

New  Edition 

BY  IRVING  FISHER 

YALE  UNIVERSITY 

Author  of  "The  Rate  of  Interest,"  "The  Nature  of  Capital  and 
Income,"  "A  Brief  Introduction  to  the  Infinitesimal  Calculus,"  etc. 

Cloth,  8vo,  505  pp.,  $3.00  net;  by  mail,  $3.18 

What  the  Leading  Reviewers  say  of 
"The  Purchasing  Power  of  Money" 

Professor  S.  J.  Chapman,  Manchester  University,  says:  "The 
kernel  of  this  book  contains  the  results  of  a  brilliant  piece  of  research, 
in  which,  after  discussion  of  the  theory  of  the  value  of  money,  an 
attempt  is  made  to  establish  the  truth  of  the  quantity  theory  induc- 
tively." 

"In  the  opinion  of  the  reviewer,  this  book  is  a  magnificent  achieve- 
ment. .  .  .  The  research  of  which  a  brief  account  has  been 
given  in  this  notice  will  add  greatly  to  the  renown  which  its  author 
has  already  fully  earned  by  his  two  volumes  on  'Capital'  and  'In- 
terest '  respectively,  and  by  his  report  to  the  American  Senate  on  the 
'Conservation  of  Vital  Forces.'" — Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical 
Society,  Vol.  LXXIV,  Part  VII. 

"It  is  timely  to  recall  the  views  expressed  by  the  professor  in  his 
new  book,  'The  Purchasing  Power  of  Money,'  which  has  two  marked 
characteristics.  Firstly,  it  gives  a  precision  never  before  attained 
or  attempted  regarding  the  effect  of  the  quantity  of  money  in  circu- 
lation upon  prices,  either  in  raising  or  lowering  them. 

"Secondly,  it  proposes  a  remedy  which  is  both  in  accord  with  the 
principles  of  classical  economists,  and  which  is  yet  progressive 
enough  to  satisfy  the  most  advanced  thought  of  this  progressive 
age."— Times,  New  York  City. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


BUSINESS 

ORGANIZATION  AND 
COMBINATION 

An  Analysis  of  the  Evolution  and  Nature  of  Business  Organiza- 
tion in  the  United  States  and  a  Tentative  Solution 
of  the  Corporation  and  Trust  Problems 

BY  LEWIS  H.   HANEY,  PH.D. 

Professor  of  Economics  in  the  University  of  Texas.     Author 
of  "A  Congressional  History  of  Railways"  and 
"History  of  Economic  Thought." 

Cloth,  8vo,  $2.00  net 

Dr.  Haney  in  his  treatment  of  business  organization  recognizes 
two  kinds:  business  that  is  productive  from  the  social  point  of  view, 
and  business  that  is  productive  only  from  the  individual  point  of 
view.  According  to  the  social  point  of  view,  business  is  productive 
when  it  adds  to  the  net  sum  of  goods  and  services  which  men  want; 
that  is,  when  the  amount  of  food,  clothes,  books,  automobiles,  teach- 
ing, medical  service,  etc.,  is  increased.  But  individuals  may  grow 
rich  in  ways  which  do  not  increase  the  net  sum  of  goods  and  services 
and  still  be  actively  engaged  in  business,  or  in  production  from  the 
individual  standpoint.  A  large  part  of  advertising  is  merely  acquisi- 
tive, not  adding  anything,  but  taking  for  one  business  man  what 
another  business  man  loses.  So  it  is  with  some  "speculation"  and 
some  middlemen's  activities.  But  all  this,  when  recognized  as  lawful 
and  when  the  price  is  freely  paid,  Dr.  Haney  calls  "business";  and 
in  the  long  run,  he  holds,  the  test  of  a  good  business  man  is  simply 
the  amount  of  income  or  private  gain  which  he  acquires  legally.  In 
his  treatment  Dr.  Haney  has  recognized  "business"  to  include  some 
activities  which  add  nothing  to  the  sum  total  of  society's  wealth. 


PUBLISHED   BY 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue  .New  York 


THE  CREDIT  SYSTEM 

BY  W.   G.  LANGWORTHY  TAYLOR 

Emeritus  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  the 
University  of  Nebraska 


Cloth,  8vo,  322  pp. 


This  book  treats  the  subject  of  money  from  an  entirely  original 
point  of  view.  It  endeavors  to  explain  financial  phenomena  rather 
than  merely  to  describe  them.  It  closely  connects  speculation  and 
promotion  with  general  prices,  and  also  explains  the  relation  of  credit 
to  money. 

The  theory  advanced  by  the  author  is  the  dynamic  one  that  price 
fluctuation  is  itself  a  normal  phenomenon,  depending  upon  the  inter- 
acting interests  of  various  orderly  groups  of  producers  and  financiers, 
and  traceable  through  successive  stages,  whether  nominal  purchasing 
power  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  normal  or  abnormal  credit. 

The  book  will  prove  one  of  practical  interest  to  the  thoughtful 
business  man  and  a  source  of  stimulation  to  college  students. 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF 
ENTERPRISE 

BY  HERBERT  J.   DAVENPORT 

Professor  of  Economics  in  the  University  of  Missouri. 

In  this  volume  Professor  Davenport  presents  the  affirmative  and 
constructive  aspects  of  the  positions  established  in  his  critical  study, 
Value  and  Distribution.  In  simple  terms  and  in  compact  orderly 
treatment  he  makes  accessible  to  the  wide  economic  public  the 
issues,  the  controversies  and  the  conclusions  which  together  sum  up 
into  the  modern  economics.  As  the  work  is  primarily  an  objective 
study  of  the  facts  of  modern  trade  and  business,  its  point  of  view  is 
that  of  the  enterpriser.  A  consistent  acceptance  of  this  competitive 
point  of  view  compels  a  general  restatement  of  economic  principles 
and  a  reclassification  of  the  facts  of  economic  life. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


ECONOMICS  OF 
BUSINESS 

BY  NORMS  A.  BRISCO,  PH.D. 

Instructor  in  Political  Science  in  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York 

Cloth,  xiv  +  390  pp.,  index,  i2mo,  $1.50  net 


Business  principles  and  methods  are  discussed  in  this  volume  in 
clear,  untechnical  language,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the 
work  one  which  may  be  read  intelligently  by  the  novice  and  with 
profit  by  the  business  man,  and  which  may  be  used  to  advantage 
as  a  text  in  college  courses.  The  author's  knowledge  of  business 
conditions  and  methods  is  based  upon  his  personal  experience,  his 
work  in  the  classroom,  and  his  study  of  the  publicly  and  privately 
expressed  views  of  the  leading  experts  in  the  various  lines  of  business 
activity.  Among  the  topics  treated  are  Organization,  Management, 
Cost  Accounting,  Efficiency  of  Methods,  Labor,  Buying,  Selling, 
Advertising,  Money  and  Credit,  Copyrights  and  Patents. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

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CO-OPERATION    IN 
AGRICULTURE 


BY  G.  HAROLD  POWELL 

(Rural  Science  Series) 


Cloth,  i2mo.,  $1.50  net;  postpaid,  $1.62 


This  book  deals  with  the  general  principles  of  co-operation.  How 
to  organize  co-operative  societies,  how  to  finance  them,  simple  organ- 
izations and  constitutional  documents,  by-laws  and  general  advice 
as  to  the  administration  of  the  associations  or  societies  are  all  con- 
sidered. 

The  author  describes  at  some  length  the  most  famous  organiza- 
tions, such  as  those  which  are  handling  citrus  fruits  in  California, 
the  farmers'  grain  elevators  systems  and  the  present  co-operation  in 
the  creamery  and  butter  business. 

This  book  is  one  that  should  be  in  the  hands  of  every  farmer  or 
agricultural  student,  for  a  more  practical  guide  to  organized  farm- 
ing and  its  co-operative  societies  has  not  been  written. 

"The  book  distinguishes  between  associations  for  profit  and  for 
mutual  benefit;  it  is  valuable  in  its  warnings  as  to  the  application  and 
changing  of  existing  laws,  as  to  the  methods  of  operation,  and  as  to 
the  spirit  of  membership,  so  vital  to  success." — New  York  Post. 

"It  is  a  mass  of  detailed  instruction  in  every  kind  of  work  on  the 
farm,  in  the  garden  and  fruit  raising  industries." — Philadelphia 
Telegraph. 

"The  book  should  be  read  by  all  persons  contemplating  the  forma- 
tion of  a  co-operative  association." — Tribune  Farmer. 


PUBLISHED   BY 

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THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
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*"°  1939 

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